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LIFE AND TIMES 



OF 



GEN. SAM. DALE 



THE 



MISSISSIPPI PARTISAN. 



BY 



J. F. H. CLAIBORNE. 



ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN m'LENAN. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS. PUBLISHERS, 



FKANKLIN BQTTABB. 



-.V 



186 0. 




TO 



i THE SURVIVING VOLUNTEERS OF MISSISSIPPI AND 

LOUISIANA 

(and in memory op the dead). 

who served in the creek war of 1813-14, under the 

late brig, gen. claiborne, this biography of 

one of their number, briefly illustrat- 

ing their patriotism, gallantry, 

and sufferings, 



30 HespectfuUg JDelriraUi. 



ALABAMA LEGISLATURE. 

An Act expressing the gratitude of the State of Alabama for the serv- 
ices rendered by Samuel Dale. Ajyproved Dec. 15, 182L 

Sec. 1. Whereas the territory now composing the State of Al- 
abama was, during our late war with Great Britain, subjected 
likewise to the barbarities of savage warfare ; and whereas our 
venerable citizen, Col. Samuel Dale, was the first to intei-pose his 
aid for the defense of our people, and endured privations and hard- 
ships that have impaired his constitution and reduced him to in- 
digence ; and whereas the said Dale, not having had it in his pow- 
er, owing to the situation of the country, to preserve his papers 
and vouchers to establish his claim on the United States govern- 
ment, and has failed to receive even justice from that quarter; 
and Avhereas we, the representatives of the people of Alabama, feel 
it a duty due to them and ourselves to manifest our gratitude for 
his distinguished services ; therefore, 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, that 
the treasurer be and is hereby required to pay to the said Col. 
Samuel Dale half the pay now allowed by the United States to 
colonels in the army. And that he is hereby declared a brigadier 
general by brevet in the militia of this state, and shall rank as 
such whenever called into service. And the governor is hereby 
required to commission him accordingly. And the treasurer is 
authorized and required to pay to the said brevet Brigadier Gen- 
eral Samuel Dale, on the first day of January in each and every 
year, the half pay as aforesaid, for and during his life, out of any 
money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. 



PREFACE. 



The historical portion of this volume has been 
condensed from authentic MSS. never yet pub^ 
lished. 

The personal adventures of Gen. Dale were taken 
down from his own lips by Franklin Smith, Esq., 
the late Henry A. Garrett, Esq., and myself, at dif- 
ferent periods. Those gentlemen — both accom- 
plished scholars — turned over their notes to me 
some years ago, and I incorporated a memoir of 
Dale with a " History of the Southwest," on which 
I had been long engaged. When ready for the 
press, the MSS. were lost by the sinking of a steam- 
er on the Mississippi. Until within a few weeks 
past I have never had leisure to reproduce the life 
of Dale. 

He was a man of singular modesty, silent and re- 
served, and rarely alluded to his own adventures. 
He was a man of truth, and possessed the confidence 
and esteem of many eminent persons. As original- 
ly written, the narrative was almost literally in his 
own words. In the present memoir I have pre- 
served his language in many parts, and faithfull}^ 
expressed his opinions. 

He was an uneducated, but by no means an ig- 



yiii PREFACE. 

norant man ; a close observer of men and things, 
with a clear head, a tenacious memory, and always 
fond of the society of educated men. I venture to 
hope that his life, as here written, presents a fair 
exemplar of the genuine frontier man — modest, 
truthful, patient, frugal, full of religious faith, proud 
of his country, remorseless in battle, yet prompt to 
forgive, and ever ready to jeopard his own safety 
for the helpless and oppressed — a race of men 
^uch as no other country has produced — wholly 
American — a feature as prominent in our social 
and political history as the grand physical charac- 
teristics peculiar to this continent. 

The sketch of the war of 1813-14 is necessarily 
cursory and brief, being confined mainly to events 
in which Gen. Dale was concerned. In a work 
now in preparation, a comprehensive view of those 
campaigns, with personal sketches of the prominent 
men engaged in them, will appear, compiled from 
the private journals and correspondence of several 
distinguished officers. J. F. H. Claiborne. 

Bay St. Louis, IVIississippi. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birth and Parentage. — The Frontier of Virginia. — Whitesides' 
Adventure. — Intrepidity of Mrs. Dale. — A Massacre and a 
Wedding. — Ann Bush. — Removal to Western Georgia. — Car- 
michael's Station. — The Fort on Fire. — Extinguished by Sam 
and Alexander Dale. — Digging Potatoes. — The 'Coon Hunt. — 
An exciting Race. — The "Long-tail Blue." — Life on the 
Frontier Page 15 

CHAPTER II. 

Move from the Fort. — Death of Mr. and Mrs. Dale. — Despair 
and Consolation. — Prayer at the Grave. — Faith in God. — In- 
dian Troubles. — Samuel Dale volunteers. — Equipment of a 
Georgia Scout. — First Battle. — Desperate Adventure in a Cane- 
brake. — Pursued by Wolves. — Loses all his Horses. — Turns 
Wagoner. — Opens a Trade with the Indians. — Emigration to 
the Tombigbee. — Terrible Death of Double-head, the great 
Cherokee Chief 32 

CHAPTER HI. 

Took-a-batcha. — Grand Council of the Creeks. — Tecumseh and 
the Shawnees. — Singular Ceremonies. — Shawnee Dance. — 
Colonel Hawkins retires. — Tecumseh's Speech to the Big 
Warrior. — Its Effect. — His personal Appearance. — Colonel 
Hawkins deceived. — His Character 50 

CHAPTER IV. 

Adventures on the Trail. — ^Narrow Escape. — Mosely's Wife. — Sam 
Manac's Deposition. — High-head Jim. — The Jerks. — Peter 
M'Queen.' — Colonel Caller. — Battle of Burnt Corn. — Death of 

A2 



^ CONTENTS. 

Ballard. — Captain Dale wounded. — Heroism of Glass. — Colo- 
nel Caller and Major Wood Page 65 

CHAPTER V. 

The War Department.— Its Imbecility and Negligence.— Gorera- 
or Holmes. — The Mails in 1812. — Major General Flournoy. — 
Smugglers. — Lafitte. — New Orleans in 1813. — Brigadier Gen- 
eral Claiborne. — March from Baton Rouge. — Transports his 
Troops and supplies the Sick at his own Expense. — Arrives 
on the Alabama. — Applies for Orders to march into the Creek 
Nation. — Is refused. — Ordered to act on the defensive. — Mans 
the several Stockades. — Death of Major BaUenger. — George S. 
Gaines 83 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Volunteers. — Unjust Censure. — Vigilance of General Clai- 
borne. — Inspects Fort Mims. — Cautions Major Beasley. — Lieu- 
tenant Chambliss. — Repairs to Fort Easley. — Last Letter of 
Major Beasley. — Fall of Fort Mims. — Dreadful Massacre. — 
Pickett's History of Alabama. — Letter from Judge Toulmiu. — 
Military Precedents 99 

CHAPTER VII. 

Captain Dale at Fort Madison. — Novel Light-house. — His Reply 
to General Flournoy. — Women on Parade. — Death of Jack 
Evans.— Bill Milfort.— The Canoe Fight.— Jerry Austin.— 
Jim Smith. — Weatherford. — His personal Appearance, Charac- 
ter, and Death 116 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Council of War. — Dale's Appearance. — His Opinion. — General 
Claiborne's Decision. — Major Tom Hinds. — His Character and 
Appearance. — Pushamataha. — Anecdotes. — Extract from the 
New Orleans Delta. -^Weatherford's Bluff.— Fort Claiborne. — 
March to the Holy Ground. — The Volunteers. — General Clai- 
borne's Dispatch. — The Battle. — Weatherford's Leap. — Christ- 
mas Dinner. — Effects of this Victory 130 



CONTENTS ^l 



CHAPTER IX. 

Old Town Expedition. — Death of Lieutenant Wilcox. — Distress 
'of the Troops. — Rats and Mice. — Horse-meat. — Corn-grpwing 
on the Alabama. — General Jackson. — A speedy Settlement. — 
Rides express. — A rapid Journey. — Arrives at New Orleans. — 
Battle of the 8th of Januaiy. — Grandeur of the Scene. — Inter- 
view with General Jackson. — "By the Eternal." — Returns to 
Georgia. — Colonel Sparks. — General Winchester. — General 
M'Intosh.— Milledgeville Page 143 

CHAPTER X. 

Merchandising. — Elected to the Convention. — General Cowles 
Mead. — The Legislature of Alabama. — Savannah Jack. — 
Death of Captain Butler. — Breveted Brigadier General. — Re- 
ception of General La Fayette. — Removal of the Choctaws.'— 
Settles in Lauderdale County, Mississippi 166 

CHAPTER XI. 

General Dale visits Washington. — Interview with General Jack- 
son. — Their Farewell. — Mr. Calhoun. — Mr. Clay. — Mr. Web- 
ster. — Mr. Benton. — Character of General Jackson. — F. P. 
Blair. — The Oyster-supper. — Joseph Gales. — Peter Force. — 
Printers in the South. — Clerkships at Washington. — Boarding- 
houses. — Scandal. — Gallantry. — Citizens and Congressmen. — 
A Braggart rebuked. — The Ladies of Washington. — Indian 
Girls. — Peter Hagner. — Dale's early Home. — The Graves of 
his Parents 177 

CHAPTER XII. 

Legislature of Mississippi. — State Officers. — Death of General 
Dickson.— Legislature of 1836. — Singular Mortality. — The 
great Question of the Session.— S. S. Prentiss. — Adam L. Bin- 
gaman. — Colonel George L. Fall. — The Mississippian. — John 
T. M'Murran. — The Democratic Leaders. — Banks. — Specula- 
tion.— Public Morals.— The Future of Mississippi.— Her His- 
tory.— The Close of Life.— His Consolation.— Faith in God.— 
His Death. — Personal Appearance and Character 214 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

^THE CANOE FIGHT Fi'ontispiece . 

VTHE WEDDING BY THE GRAVE 22 

^ DALE DODGING THE INDIAN 29 

J dale's prayer 34 

^DALE AS A SCOUT 37 

THE FIGHT IN THE CANEBRAKE 41 

^ TECUMSEH'S SPEECH 57 

J BALLARD AVENGED 76 

■^ PLAN OF FORT MIMS 112 

' dale's INTTERVIEW WITH JACKSON 153 

^ DALE STOPPED BY THE SENTINELS 161 

-i THE UGLIEST MAN 187 

^THE BRAGGART REBUKED , 210 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



OF 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birtli and Parentage. — The Frontier of Virginia. — Whitesides' 
Adventure. — Intrepidity of Mrs. Dale. — A Massacre and a 
Wedding. — Ann Bush. — Removal to Western Georgia. — Car- 
miehael's Station. — The Fort on Fire. — Extinguished by Sam 
and Alexander Dale. — Digging Potatoes. — The 'Coon Hunt. — 
An exciting Race. — The "Long-tail Blue." — Life on the 
Frontier. 

I AM of Scotcli-Irisli extraction. My fa- 
ther and mother were natives of Pennsylva- 
nia, in the vicinity of Carlisle, but soon 
after their marriage removed to Hockbridge 
County, Virginia, where I was born. In 
the latter part of 1775 they again moved to 
the forks of Clinch E-iver, Washington 
County, and purchased a piece of land, 
where, uniting with a few neighbors, we 



IQ LIFE AND TIMES OF 

built a stockade called Glade Hollow Fort, 
for protection against the incursions of the 
Western Indians. Here the women and 
children remained, each family occupying 
sejDarate cabins, while the men tilled their 
corn-fields, keeping their guns at hand and 
scouts constantly on the look-out. It was 
a wild, precarious life, often interrupted by 
ambuscade and massacre, but no one of that 
hardy frontier race was ever known to re- 
turn to the settlements. On the contrary, 
they pressed forward from river to river, 
crossing new ranges of mountains, penetrat- 
ing new wildernesses, marking their march 
with blood, encountering privation and dan- 
ger at every step, but never dreaming of re- 
treat. Even the women and children be- 
came inured to peril, and cheerfully moved 
forward in this daring exodus to the West. 
The first incident at our new residence 
that I remember occurred when my father 
and one Whitesides left the fort together, 
one bound for the mill, the other in search 
of horses. Soon after they separated White- 
sides was seized by a party of Indians. 
They tied him to a tree, in the custody of 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^7 

two warriors, and hastened forward to sur- 
prise the fort. By this time, however, my 
father, hard by, had fallen in with a foraging 
party from an adjoining settlement who had 
discerned Indian '' signs/'' At the same mo- 
ment Whitesides came dashing by them, 
shouting "Indians." He struck for Elk 
Garden Station, some ten miles south, where 
his own family and others were posted. His 
shouts put us at Glade Hollow on the alert, 
and the Indians, foreseeing this, ambushed 
themselves in a ravine. In the mean time 
my father and the party from Elk Garden 
approached, unconscious of danger. The 
terrific war-whoop and the crack of twenty 
rifles was the first they knew of the enemy. 
They got into the fort, leaving Bill Priest, 
Burton Little, and two others dead in the 
hands of the savages, who scalped them and 
retired. 

Whitesides afterward informed us that 
his guards, intending to get farther from 
the fort, were in the act of untying him. 
One sat down, with his gun across his knees, 
to unloosen the thongs around his legs ; the 
other had laid his gun on the ground. 



13 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Whitesides seized tlie gun of the sitting In- 
dian, shot the other while he was stooping 
to recover his weapon, and, before the re- 
maining one could reach him with his knife, 
he crushed the rifle over his head. 

About this time Joe Horn and Dave Cal- 
houn went to their clearings to plant corn, 
very imprudently taking their wives and 
children with them, who camped in the field. 
Being both off hunting one day, the prowL 
ing savages made a clean sweep of these two 
families. The poor heart-stricken husbands, 
almost crazy, returned to the fort, and the 
whole night was passed by all of us in lam- 
entations and vows of vengeance. 

For several months after this we were not 
troubled, and my brother and myself were 
boarded about ten miles off, at Halbert 
M'Clure's, to go to school. Returning one 
morning from a visit home, we fell in with 
old Mr. Bush, of Castlewood Fort, who in- 
formed us that he saw Shawnee ''signs" 
about, and that we must go back to Glade 
Hollow and give the alarm. Unfortunate- 
ly, father had left the day before for the salt 
works on Holston Kiver, and m.other and 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I9 

the children were alone. About nine at 
night we saw two Indians approaching. 
Mother immediately threw a bucket of water 
on the fire to prevent them from seeing us, 
made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred 
the door, and posted herself there with an 
axe and rifle. We never knew why they 
desisted from an attack, or how father es- 
caped, who rode up three hours afterward. 

In two or three days all of us set out for 
Clinch Mountain, to the wedding of Hoppy 
Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Hol- 
ston, and Sally M 'Clure, a fine, bouncing girl 
of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless 
and free. We knew the Shawnees were 
about — that our fort and household eflects 
must be left unguarded, and might probably 
be destroyed — that we incurred the risk of a 
fight or an ambuscade, capture, and even 
death on the route ; but in those days, in that 
wild country, folks did not calculate conse- 
quences closely, and the temptation to a 
frolic — a wedding, a feast, and a dance till 
daylight, and often for several days togeth- 
er — was not to be resisted, and ofl* we went. 

In half an hour we fell in with Captain 



20 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Barnett and twenty men from Holston, who 
warned us that Indians were about, and that 
he was scouting for them. Father, ever 
eager for a fight, joined this company, and 
we trudged on to Clinch Mountain. Instead 
of the bridal party, the well-sjDread table, 
the ringing laughter, and the sounding feet 
of buxom dancers, we found a pile of ashes 
and six or seven ghastly corpses, tomahawk- 
ed and scalped. Poor Hardy M'Clure was 
dead; several others lay around. One 
daughter was still breathing, but soon ex- 
pired. Mrs. M'Clure, her infant, and three 
other children, including Sally, the intended 
bride, had been carried off by the savages. 
They soon tore the poor infant from its 
mother's arms, and killed and scalped it, 
that she might travel faster. While they 
were scalping this child, Peggy M'Clure, 
a girl twelve years old, perceived a sink- 
hole immediately at her feet, and dropped 
silently into it. It communicated with a 
ravine, down which she ran, and brought 
the news into the settlements. The Indians 
were too apprehensive of pursuit to search 
for her. The same night, Sally, who had 



*S:. 




THE W131>T>rNG BY THE GEAVE. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 23 

been tied and forced to lie down between 
two warriors, contrived to loosen her tliongs 
and make her escape. She struck for the 
cane-brake, then for the river, and, to conceal 
her trail, resolved to descend it. It was 
deep wading, and the current so rapid she 
had to fill her petticoat with gravel to steady 
herself She soon, however, recovered con- 
fidence, returned to shore, and finally reach- 
ed the still smoking homestead about dark 
next evening. A fcAV neighbors, well armed, 
had just buried the dead. Kincaid was 
among them. The last jDrayer had been 
said when the orphan girl stood before them, 
and was soon in the arms of her lover. He- 
solved to leave no more to chance, at his 
entreaty and by the advice of all, the weep- 
ing girl gave her consent, and by the grave 
of the household and near the ruined dwell- 
ing they were immediately married. 

In the mean time Captain Barnett pur- 
sued the fugitives, and when near the Ohio 
succeeded in recapturing Mrs. M'Clure and 
her son. 

About this time, Ann and Maria Bush, 
of Castlewood Fort, while milking near by. 



24 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

were captured. Seven white men followed 
the trail and overtook the marauders on the 
Ohio. Three were in the water constructing 
a raft/*^ three were butchering a buffalo, and 
one was repairing the lock of his gun. At 
the first discharge four of the savages Avere 
slain ; the three others struck boldly into 
the river and escaped. 

Not long afterward Ann Bush married, 
and in twelve months was again caj)tured, 
with an infant in her arms. After traveling 
a few hours, the savages bent down a young 
hickory, sharpened it, seized the child, scalp- 
ed it, and spitted it upon the tree ; they then 
scalped and tomahawked the mother, and 
left her for dead. She lay insensible for 
many hours, but it was the will of Provi- 
dence that she should survive the shock. 
When she recovered her senses she bandaged 
her head with her apron, and, wonderful to 
tell, in two days staggered back to the settle- 
ments with the dead body of her infant. I 
have often heard her relate the dreadful 
story. 

* An Indian raft consists of dried logs or drift-woodj tied to- 
gether with wild grape-vines. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 25 

Toward the end of 1783 we removed to 
the vicmity of what is now Greensborough, 
Georgia, where father anticipated more tran- 
quillity than we had enjoyed on Clinch River; 
but in a few months after we had establish- 
ed ourselves the Creeks and Cherokees be- 
came troublesome, and we were compelled 
to seek" shelter in Carmichaers Station. 
These forts were merely a number of log 
cabins built round a small square, with 
sometimes a block-house in the centre or in 
an angle of the square, the whole surround- 
ed by a rough picketing. Thirty families 
had forted at Carmichael's, the men going 
out every day in squads to till their fields, 
look after their cattle, and hunt for game. 
Several hundred bushels of corn had been 
hauled in a few days before and husked out, 
the corn being in a pen and the husks piled 
up against the fort. In the dead of night 
we were startled by awful yells and a blaze 
of light. The Indians had silently approach- 
ed, bringing fire in a cow''s horn to prevent 
discover}^, and had applied it to the shucks, 
and retreated to the side of the square 

whence they had entered the inclosure. My 

B 



2Q LIFE AND TIMES OF 

father and mother each seized a rifle and 
stood in the door, and ordered my brother 
and myself to keep the fort between us and 
the Indians, and put out the fire if possible. 
We ran to the corn-pen, pulled down the 
rails, and let the high pile of corn slip down 
on the blazing shucks. This soon smother- 
ed the flames. Seeing this movement, the 
Indians retreated, but not until two of their 
number had been killed by shots from the 
difierent cabins. They then set fire to an 
out-house stored Avith flax, and showed them- 
selves in force. But our men turned out, 
and the women put on hats and overcoats, 
and, deceived by this appearance of strength, 
the Indians retired. 

One of our best men. Captain Autrey, a 
few days after, took his hands out to stri]) 
fodder, and^ while scouting round the field, 
was tomahawked and scalped, and his bow- 
els suspended on a tree. 

Father, Jim Stocks, brother Alexander, 
myself, and a negro fellow set out one even- 
ing to dig potatoes a few miles from the 
fort. We let down the fence and left it so, 
to facilitate our retreat in the event of an 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 27 

£ittack. We were preparing to dismount, 
when some one cried out that the fence had 
been put up again. Father immediately 
gave the word "Every one for himself," 
and each one struck for the woods. We 
were fired on all round the field, but got 
safely back to the fort with only a few flesh 
wounds and two horses crippled. One rifle 
ball cut the cartilage of my nose. 

Three days thereafter two negro fellows 
were dispatched from the station to put 
some cows in a newly-gathered corn-field. 
Before day the same morning my brother 
and I slipped out for a 'coon hunt. We had 
treed a 'coon, and I was in the top of a very 
tall tree, in the act of shaking him down, 
when we heard the report of several guns. 
My brother dashed for the fort. The next 
moment, about a hundred yards ofl^, one of 
Carmichaers negroes came staggering along, 
and soon fell; the other was pursued by 
three Indians. It was a most exciting race. 
They ran straight for my tree, which was on 
a direct line to the fort. The negro wore a 
"long-tail blue," the skirts flying out as he 
fled. The foremost Indian seized them, but 



28 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

they gave way under his grasp. He next 
seized the collar, and tore the whole coat 
from his back, and in the effort fell. This 
saved the negro's life. While this was tak- 
ing place the two other Indians had scalped 
the dead negro, and were now standing un- 
der my tree. I had an old holster pistol in 
my belt loaded with buckshot, and it occur- 
red to me that I might kill both of them. 
I blazed away, and one fell dead ; the other 
bolted like a flash of lightning, and I saw 
no more of him. The first Indian now per- 
ceived me, and, picking up his rifle, which 
had been dropped in the chase, leveled it at 
me. I had often been bafiled for hours by a 
fox squirrel in a tree watching my motions, 
and going round and round, so as to keep 
the tree between me and him. I played 
the same game with the Indian. He fired 
twice and barked the tree close to my ears, 
when, fortunately, a party from the fort ap- 
peared and he retreated. I shook down my 
'coon and got safely in. We raised a sub- 
scription and bought an old Continental uni- 
form coat, the best in the fort, for the negro 
fellow. 




DODGING THE INDIAN. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. g^ 

Thus passed the days of my youth. Inured 
to every hardship, living on the coarsest 
food, earning our bread with our rifles cock- 
ed and primed, often witnessing the ruin of 
homesteads and the murder of families, my 
own life constantly in jeopardy, yet ever 
hopeful, ever relying on Providence, ever 
conscious of my duty to my fellow-men, 
never counting a personal risk for others as 
a merit, but only as a duty, and, in spite of 
privation and danger, loving the wilderness 
to the last. 

Great cities are the centres of civilization, 
colleges and universities are the nurseries ol 
learning and refinement, consecrated orators 
in gorgeous churches teach the solemn truths 
of revelation, but it is only in the boundless 
seas, perhaps, or in the deep solitude of 
mountain and valley, that the untutored eye 
can "look through nature up to nature's 
God." 



32 LIFE AND TIMKS OF 



CHAPTEE II. 

Move from the Fort. — Death of Mr. and Mrs. Dale. — Despair 
and Consolation. — Prayer at the Grave. — Faith in God. — In- 
dian Troubles. — Samuel Dale volunteers. — Equipment of a 
Georgia Scout. — First Battle. — Desperate Adventure in a Cane- 
brake. — Pursued by Wolves. — Loses all his Horses. — Turns 
Wagoner. — Opens a Trade with the Indians. — Emigration to 
the Tombigbee. — Terrible Death of Double-head, the great 
Cherokee Chief. 

Many settlers had now moved into Greene 
County, and the Indians had ceased to be 
troublesome. In November, 1791, father 
contracted for and moved to a tract of land 
three miles from Carmichaers Station, for 
which he was to pay seven thousand pounds 
of tobacco. We built our cabin and made 
a clearing, but the blind staggers got among 
our horses and killed all but one. This was 
a heavy blow. The following Christmas my 
poor mother died, and in one week my dear 
father, broken-hearted, followed her to the 
grave. He never looked up, scarcely ever 
spoke, after her death, but took to his bed, 
and never rose from it again. Never be- 






f4yi^ 




DAT.E'8 PRAVKR 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 



85 



fore, certainly never since, though I have 
breasted many difficulties and endured many 
sorrows, 1ms the iron ever entered so deeply 
into my hekrt. Never have I felt so crush- 
ed and overpowered by the feeling of help- 
lessness and isolation. I was under twenty 
years of age ; no foot of earth could be call- 
ed our own ; we were burdened wdth debt ; 
no kindred blood or opulent friends to offer 
us sympathy or aid ; eight brothers and sis- 
ters, all younger than myself, and one an 
infant, looking to me for bread, and the 
mlderness around our lonely cabin swarm- 
ing with enemies. In this state of mind, 
on the night after we had laid father by our 
poor mother's side, when my little brothers 
and sisters had sobbed themselves to sleep, 
I went to their graves and prayed. Ah ! 
those who are cradled in luxury and sur- 
rounded by opulent kindred can not know 
ihe whole strength of the tie that binds to- 
gether parent and child that have no other 
friends, and how it tears the heart when 
that tie is broken. '' Tis the survivor dies.'' 
I went to tlie grave a broken-hearted, almost 
despairing boy. I came back tearful and 



36 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

sad, but a hopeful and resolute man. I felt 
the weight of the responsibility upon me, 
that I must be both father and mother to 
those orphaned little ones. I had faith in 
Providence and in myself, and when they 
awoke I met them with a smile, and with 
kind words and a cheerful spirit. We all 
went resolutely to work according to our 
strength, and God blessed our labors. 

In 1793, the Indians being restless and 
discontented by the advance of the whites. 
Captain Foote was authorized by the Gov- 
ernor of Georgia to organize a troop of 
horse for the protection of the frontier. 
Putting aj steady old man in my place on 
the farm, I volunteered for the service. Our 
accoutrements were a 'coonskin cap, bear- 
skin vest, short hunting-shirt and trowsers of 
homespun stuff, buckskin leggins, a blanket 
tied behind our saddles, a wallet for parched 
corn, coal flour, or other chance provision, 
a long rifle and hunting-knife. After some 
months' scouting we were mustered into the 
United States service, and ordered to Fort 
Mathews, on the Oconee. The pay I re- 
ceived, and a first-rate crop of tobacco made 






X 




DAT.E AS A SCOtJT. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 39 

by the children, enabled me to pay more 
than half the price of our land, besides 
having an abundant suj^ply of provisions. 
Next year we extinguished the debt, and 
our household grew up with thankful hearts 
to an overruling Providence. 

In 1794 the Creek Indians renewed their 
depredations, burning houses and driving 
off horses and cattle. Our company was 
ordered out. We followed them to the 
Oke-fus-kee village, near the Chattahoochie. 
Crossing the river before daybreak, we got 
silently into the town just as the Indians, 
having taken the alarm, were rushing from 
their cabins. We killed thirteen warriors, 
captured ten, and then set fire to the village. 

Scouting in front of my company on our 
return march, I came upon an Indian lodge 
occupied by two warriors. I shot one dead ; 
the other jumped into the cane-brake. One 
O'Neal, who came up just then, and myself 
pursued him. The cane was very thick, and 
we wormed along slowly, when the Indian 
fired, and O 'Neal fell dead by my side. By 
this time our troop had come up, and see- 
ing no one, and supposing that Indians were 



40 l-IFi^ AND TIMES OF 

concealed in the thicket, they began a gener- 
al fire, cutting the cane all about me. I 
threw myself on the ground, drew up 
O'Nears corpse as a shield, and it was rid- 
dled with balls, two of them inflicting slight 
wounds upon me. It was some time before 
the fire slackened sufliciently for me to ap- 
prise them of my position. At the same 
moment a party began to fire on the oppo- 
site side of the thicket, and the Indian, who 
all this time was not twenty yards off, but 
invisible, took the bold resolution to advance 
upon me and escape. Gliding through the 
cane like a serpent in an almost horizontal 
posture, he briskly approached me. I cock- 
ed my rifle, and the instant I got sight of 
his head I pulled trigger, but missed fire ; 
before I could re-prime he was upon me (for 
I was sitting on the ground), with his knife 
at my throat and his left hand twisted in 
my hair. At the instant one of our troop 
(Murray) fired, and, leaping to my feet, I 
plunged my knife into the Indian's bosom. 
But he was already dead ; Murray had shot 
him through the heart, and, without a spasm 
or a groan, he fell heavily into my arms. 



. 'Wmmn 



''.4 



m II li Aril 




THE FMJHT IN TITE CANEBEAKE, 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 43 

He was a brave fellow, so we wrapped his 
blanket around him, broke his gun and laid 
it across his body, and departed. 

When we reached the Skull Shoals, on 
Oconee, where the paths forked, I was de- 
tailed by the captain, with three men, to 
take the prisoners to Greensborough, whence 
they were dispatched to Augusta. Soon 
after I was intrusted with ten men, and 
picketed at Fort Republic, on the Appa- 
lachee. This was, in fact, a detachment of 
scouts. The duty was fatiguing and peril- 
ous, and each man was sworn to perform it. 
Five days of every six, singly or in couples, 
we reconnoitred the frontier in opposite 
directions, each making a circLiit of twent}^- 
five miles per day. I generally rode alone. 
The first trail I fell in with I pursued until 
night overtook me, when I tied my horse 
and lay down under a tree. I was aroused 
by the snorting of my horse and the clamor 
of a pack of wolves ; their fierce eyes glowed 
in the darkness around like burning coals, 
and their howls were terrific. I sprang into 
the tree barely in time: one of my shoes 
was torn oiF as I ascended. They tore up 



4,4: LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the earth and gnawed the bark from the 
trunk, but, strange to say, did not molest 
my horse, who stood quivering with terror. 
I dared not shout, for fear of Indians in the 
vicinity. At daybreak the wolves disap- 
peared. I pursued the Indian trail within 
a mile of Oconee, where the trail entered the 
swamp, and I presumed the party, evidently 
a large one, would camp for the night. I 
therefore turned up the river, crossed at 
another ford, and reached my farm late in 
the night, intending to report to my colonel 
next morning. When I rose, my horse and 
three others, all that we owned, were miss- 
ing. With three of my scouts I followed 
the back trail eighty miles, but never over- 
took them. 

In 1796 our company was disbanded. I 
procured a four-horse wagon, went down to 
Savannah, and engaged in wagoning during 
the winter, returning in the spring to put 
my horses in the plow and aid my brothers 
in making a crop. Thriving in this line of 
business, in the year '99 1 invested my little 
capital in goods, and went on a trading ad- 
venture among the Creeks, bartering mer- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 45 

chandise for cattle and hogs, peltry, hides, 
and tallow, which I carried down to the sea- 
board and sold. 

About that period, a brisk emigration 
from Georgia and the Carolinas, through 
the Creek and Choctaw country, to the Mis- 
sissippi Territory, begun. I put three wag- 
ons and teams in the business, contracting 
for the transportation of families, and bring- 
ing back with me to Savannah return loads 
of Indian produce. 

In 1803, Colonel William Barnet, Buck- 
ner Harris, and Boderic Easely were com- 
missioned by the President to mark out a 
highway through the Cherokee nation. El- 
lick Saunders, a half-blood, and I were se- 
lected as guides. The road having been es- 
tablished, I united with Jo Buffington, a half- 
blood, and set up a trading-post on High- 
tower Biver, among the Cherokees. We 
chiefly exchanged our goods for peltries, 
which we wagoned to Charleston. 

While thus eno^ao^ed I witnessed the death 
of Double-head, the great chief of the Cher- 
okees. I had gone with several pack-horses, 
loaded with merchandise, to a great ball-play 



46 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Oil Hiwassee Kiver, where more than a thou- 
sand Cherokees, the officers from Hiwassee 
Fort, and numerous traders had assembled. 
The chief affected to receive me with severi- 
ty, and said, " Sam, you are a mighty liar." 

I demanded why he insulted me in public. 
He smiled and said, "You have never kept 
your promise to come and see me. You 
know you have lied.''' 

He then produced a bottle of whisky, and 
invited the officers and myself to drink. 
When we had emptied it I offered to replen- 
ish it, but he refused, saying, "When I am 
in the white man's country I will drink your 
liquor, but here you must drink with Double- 
head." 

When the ball-play ceased I was standing 
by the chief, when the Bone-polisher, a cap- 
tain, approached, and denounced him as a 
traitor for selling a piece of the country, a 
large and valuable tract near the shoals of 
Tennessee River, to a company of specula- 
tors. The great chief remained tranquil and 
silent, which only aggravated the Bone-pol- 
isher, who continued his abuse with menac- 
ing gestures. Double-head quietly remark- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 47 

ed, '' Go away. You have said enough. 
Leave me, or I shall kill you." Bone-pol- 
isher rushed at him with his tomahawk, 
which the chief received on his left arm, and 
drawing a pistol, shot him through the heart. 
Foreseeing trouble, I left immediately for 
Hiwassee Ferry. Some time after night 
Double-head came in, evidently under the 
influence of liquor. One John Rogers, an 
old white man, who had long resided in the 
nation, was present, and began to revile 
the chief in the manner of Bone-polisher. 
Double-head proudly replied, "You live by 
sufferance among us. I have never seen you 
in council nor on the war-path. You have 
no place among the chiefs. Be silent, and 
interfere no more with me.*" The old man 
still persisted, and Double-head attempted to 
shoot him, but his pistol missed fire ; in fact, 
it was not charged. Ellick Saunders, and 
Bidge, a chief, were present. Bidge extin- 
guished the light, and one of them fired at 
Double-head. When the light was rekin- 
dled, Bidge, Saunders, and Bogers had dis- 
appeared, and the chief lay motionless on his 
face. The ball had shattered his lower jaw. 



48 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and lodged in the nape of his neck. His 
friends set out with him for the garrison, but, 
apprehensive of being overtaken, they turn- 
ed aside, and concealed him in the loft of one 
Mr. Black, a schoolmaster. In the mean 
time, two warriors, of the clan of the Bone- 
polisher, who had been designated to avenge 
his death, traced Double-head, by his blood, 
to the house where he had been concealed. 
At the same moment Ridge and Saunders 
came galloping up, shouting the war-whoop. 
Colonel James Blair, of Georgia, and I fol- 
lowed them. The wounded chief was lying 
on the floor, his jaw and arm terribly lac- 
erated. Ridge and Saunders each leveled 
their pistols, and each missed fire. Double- 
head sprang upon Ridge and would have 
overpowered him, but Saunders discharged 
his pistol and shot him through the hips. 
Saunders then rushed on him with his tom- 
ahawk ; but the dying chief wrenched it from 
him and leaped upon Ridge, when Saunders 
seized another tomahawk and drove it into 
his brains. When he fell, another Indian 
crushed his head with a spade. 

It was a dreadful spectacle and most cow- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 49 

ardly murder. Double-head was a renown- 
ed chief. In single combat he never had a 
superior. He wielded much influence by his 
oratorical abilities, and was often compared 
with his predecessor, the "Little Turkey," 
the most famous and popular of all the Cher- 
okee chiefs. The cupidity of speculators, 
who have so often robbed and ruined the 
Bed Men, tempted him to sell a portion of 
his country. From that moment his death 
was resolved upon. The rencounter with the 
Bone-polisher, where he acted strictly in self- 
defense, merely precipitated his fate. He 
perished apparently upon the Indian max- 
im of blood for blood, but was really the vic- 
tim of conspiracy. 

C 



50 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER III. 

Took-a-batcha. — Grand Council of the Creeks. — Tecumseh and 
the Shawnees. — Singular Ceremonies. — Shawnee Dance. — 
Colonel Hawkins retires. — Tecumseh's Speech to the Big 
Warrior. — Its Effect. — His personal Appearance. — Colonel 
Hawkins deceived. — His Character. 

In 1808, the State of Georgia distributed 
by lottery a large body of land acquired 
from the Creek Indians. I drew an excel- 
lent water-power, the Flat Shoals, on Com- 
missioner's Creek, and erected a set of mills ; 
but the calling was not to my liking, and I 
disposed of them, and opened a farm in 
Jones County, which was for several years 
my home. 

In October, 1811, the annual grand coun- 
cil of the Creek Indians assembled at Took- 
a-batcha, a very ancient town on the Talla- 
poosa Hiver. At those annual assemblies 
the United States Agent for the Creeks al- 
ways attended, besides many white and half- 
breed traders, and strangers from other 
tribes. I accompanied Colonel Hawkins, 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 5I 

the United States Agent. A flying rumor 
had circulated far and near that some of the 
Northwestern Indians would be present, 
and this brought some five thousand people 
to Took-a-batcha, including many Cherokees 
and Choctaws. 

The day after the council met, Tecumseh, 
with a suite of twenty-four warriors, march- 
ed into the centre of the square, and stood 
still and erect as so many statues. They 
were dressed in tanned buckskin hunting- 
shirt and leggins, fitting closely, so as to 
exhibit their muscular development, and 
they wore a profusion of silver ornaments ; 
their faces were painted red and black. 
Each warrior carried a rifle, tomahawk, and 
war-club. They were the most athletic body 
of men I ever saw. The famous Jim Blue- 
jacket was among them. Tecumseh was 
about six feet high, well put together, not 
so stout as some of his followers, but of an 
austere countenance and imperial mien. He 
was in the prime of life. 

The Shawnees made no salutation, but 
stood facing the council-house, not looking 
to the right or the left. Throughout the 



52 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

assembly there was a dead silence. At 
length the Big Warrior, a noted chief of 
the Creeks and a man of colossal propor- 
tions, slowly approached, and handed his 
pipe to Tecumseh. It was passed in succes- 
sion to each of his warriors ; and then the 
Big Warrior — ^not a word being spoken — 
pointed to a large cabin, a few hundred 
yards from the square, which had previously 
been furnished with skins and provisions. 
Tecumseh and his band, in single file, march- 
ed to it. At night they danced, in the style 
peculiar to the northern tribes, in front of 
this cabin, and the Creeks crowded around, 
but no salutations were exchanged. Every 
morning the chief sent an interpreter to the 
council-house to announce that he would 
appear and deliver his talk, but before the 
council broke up another message came 
that "the sun had traveled too far, and he 
would talk next day.*" At length Colonel 
Hawkins became impatient, and ordered his 
horses to be packed. I told him the Shaw- 
nees intended mischief; that I noted much 
irritation and excitement among the Creeks, 
and he would do well to remain. He de- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 53 

rided my notions, declared that the Creeks 
were entn^ely under his control and could 
not be seduced, that Tecumseh's visit was 
merely one of show and ceremony, and he 
laughingly added, "Sam, you are getting 
womanly and cowardly." I warned him 
that there was danger ahead, and that, with 
his permission, as I had a depot of goods in 
the nation, I would watch them a w^hile 
longer. We then packed up and publicly 
left the ground, and rode twelve miles to 
the Big Spring, where Colonel Hawkins 
agreed to halt for a day or two, and I re- 
turned at night to the vicinity of the coun- 
cil ground, where I fell in with young Bill 
Milfort, a handsome half-blood, nearly white, 
whom I had once nursed through a danger- 
ous illness. Bill — alas ! that he should have 
been doomed to perish by my hand — was 
strongly attached to me, and agreed to ap- 
prise me when Tecumseh was ready to de- 
liver his talk. Next day, precisely at twelve. 
Bill summoned me. I saw the Shawnees 
issue from their lodge ; they were painted 
black, and entirely naked except the flap 
about their loins. Every weapon but the 



54 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

war-club — ^then first introduced among the 
Creeks — had been laid aside. An angry 
scowl sat on all their visages : they looked 
like a procession of devils. Tecumseh led, 
the warriors followed, one in the footsteps 
of the other. The Creeks, in dense masses, 
stood on each side of the path, but the 
Shawnees noticed no one ; they marched to 
the pole in the centre of the square, and then 
turned to the left. At each angle of the 
square Tecumseh took from his pouch some 
tobacco and sumach, and dropped it on the 
ground; his warriors performed the same 
ceremony. This they repeated three times 
as they marched around the square. Then 
they approached the flag-pole in the centre, 
circled round it three times, and, facing the 
north, threw tobacco and sumach on a small 
fire, burning, as usual, near the base of the 
pole. On this they emptied their pouches. 
They then marched in the same order to the 
council, or king's house (as it was termed in 
ancient times), and drew up before it. The 
Big Warrior and the leading men were sit- 
ting there. Tlie Shawnee chief sounded his 
war-whoop — a most diabolical yell — and 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 55 

each of his followers responded. Tecumseh 
then presented to the Big Warrior a wam- 
pum-belt of five different-colored strands, 
which the Creek chief handed to his war- 
riors, and it was passed down the line. The 
Shawnee pipe was then produced; it was 
large, long, and profusely decorated with 
shells, beads, and painted eagle and porcu- 
pine quills. It was lighted from the fire in 
the centre, and slowly passed from the Big 
Warrior along the line. All this time not 
a word had been uttered ; every thing was 
still as death : even the winds slept, and 
there was only the gentle rustle of the fall- 
ing leaves. At length Tecumseh spoke, at 
first slowly and in sonorous tones ; but soon 
he grew impassioned, and the words fell in 
avalanches from his lips. His eyes burned 
with supernatural lustre, and his whole 
frame trembled with emotion : his voice re- 
sounded over the multitude — now sinking 
in low and musical whispers, now rising to 
its highest key, hurling out his words like a 
succession of thunderbolts. His counte- 
nance varied with his speech : its prevalent 
expression was a sneer of hatred and defi- 



56 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ance ; sometimes a murderous smile ; for a 
brief interval a sentiment of profound sor- 
row pervaded it ; and, at the close, a look 
of concentrated vengeance, such, I sujipose, 
as distinguishes the arch-enemy of mankind. 
I have heard many great orators, but I 
never saw one with the vocal powers of Te- 
cumseh, or the same command of the mus- 
cles of his face. Had I been deaf, the play 
of his countenance would have told me what 
he said. Its effect on that wild, supersti- 
tious, untutored, and warlike assemblage 
may be conceived : not a word was said, but 
stern warriors, the "stoics of the woods," 
shook with emotion, and a thousand toma- 
hawks were brandished in the air. Even 
the Big Warrior, who had been true to the 
whites, and remained faithful during the 
war, was, for the moment, visibly affected, 
and more than once I saw his huge hand 
clutch, spasmodically, the handle of his knife. 
All this was the effect of his delivery ; for, 
though the mother of Tecumseh was a Creek, 
and he was familiar with the language, he 
spoke in the northern dialect, and it was aft- 
erward interpreted by an Indian linguist 




teoumseh's speech. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 59 

to the assembly. His speech has been re- 
ported, but no one has done or can do it 
justice. I think I can repeat the substance 
of what he said, and, indeed, his very words. 

TECUMSEH'S SPEECH. 

''In defiance of the white warriors of 
Ohio and Kentucky, I have traveled through 
their settlements, once our favorite hunting- 
grounds. No war-whoop was sounded, but 
there is blood on our knives. The Pale- 
faces felt the blow, but knew not whence it 
came. 

''Accursed be the race that has seized on 
our country and made women of our war- 
riors. Our fathers, from their tombs, re- 
proach us as slaves and cowards. I hear 
them now in the wailing winds. 

"The Muscogee was once a mighty peo- 
ple. The Georgians trembled at your war- 
whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, on the 
distant lakes, sung the prowess of your war- 
riors and sighed for their embraces. 

"Now your very blood is white; your 
tomahawks have no edge ; your bows and 
arrows were buried with your fathers. Oh ! 



60 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Muscogees, brethren of my mother, brush 
from your eyelids the sleep of slavery ; once 
more strike for vengeance — once more for 
your country. The spirits of the mighty 
dead complain. Their tears drop from the 
weeping skies. Let the white race perish. 

"They seize your land ; they corrupt your 
women ; they trample on the ashes of your 
dead ! 

"Back, whence they came, upon a trail 
of blood, they must be driven. 

"Back! back, ay, into the great water 
whose accursed waves brought them to our 
shores ! 

"Burn their dwellings! Destroy their 
stock ! Slay their wives and children ! The 
Hed Man owns the country, and the Pale- 
faces must never enjoy it. 

"WarnoY*^! War forever! War upon 
the living ! War upon the dead ! Dig their 
very corpses from the grave. Our country 
must give no rest to a white man's bones. 

"This is the will of the Great Spirit, re- 
vealed to my brother, his familiar, the Proph- 
et of the Lakes. He sends me to you. 

"All the tribes of the north are dancinsf 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. Qi 

the war-dance. Two miglity warriors across 
the seas will send us arms. 

''Tecumseh will soon return to his coun- 
try. My prophets shall tarry with you. 
They will stand between you and the bullets 
of your enemies. When the white men ap- 
proach you the yawning earth shall swallow 
them up. 

"Soon shall you see my arm of fire 
stretched athwart the sky. I will stamp 
my foot at Tippecanoe, and the very earth 
shall shake.""* 

When he resumed his seat the northern 
pipe was again passed round in solemn si- 
lence. The Shawnees then simultaneously 
leaped up with one appalling yell, and 
danced their tribal war-dance, going through 

* At the battle of the Holy Ground, which occurred some time 
after, the prophets left by Tecumseh predicted that the earth would 
jsLwn and swallow up General Claiborne and his troops. Tecum- 
seh refers to the Kings of England and Spain, who supplied the 
Indians with arms at Detroit and at Pensacola. The British of- 
ficers had informed him that a comet would soon appear, and the 
earthquakes of 1811 had commenced as he came through Ken- 
tucky. Like a consummate orator, he refers to them in his 
speech. When the comet soon after appeared, and the earth be- 
gan to tremble, they attributed to him supernatural powers, and 
immediately took up arms. 



g2 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the evolutions of battle, the scout, the am- 
bush, the final struggle, brandishmg their 
war-clubs, and screaming in terrific concert 
an infernal harmony fit only for the regions 
of the damned. 

It was now midnight, and 1 left the ground 
and made the best of my way to Colonel 
Hawkinses camp at Big Spring, reporting 
faithfully to him what had occurred ; but 
he appeared to attach little importance to 
it, relying too much on his own influence 
over the Indians. ''Colonel Hawkins," 
says Pickett, in his ''History of Alabama,'' 
"seems to have been strangely benighted, 
slowly allowing his mind to be convinced 
that any thing serious was meditated." He 
had resided many years among the Creeks, 
and early conceived the laudable notion of 
teaching them the arts of civilization. In 
his communications to the War Department 
he flattered himself that they emulated the 
progress of the whites, and that the whole 
nation, with the exception of a few "fa- 
natics" without influence, sincerely desired 
peace. Even after the Creeks and Shaw- 
nees had visited Pensacola to procure am- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^3 

munition, and informed Forbes and Inerar- 
ity that they meant to attack the Tensaw 
settlements. Colonel Hawkins assured Gen- 
eral Flo urn oy that there was no danger. 
He over-estimated his own influence, and I 
ventured to tell him so as we rode from Big 
Spring. It was under this unfortunate ad- 
vice, it will be seen, that General Flournoy 
subsequently refused General Claiborne's 
urgent application for orders to march into 
the heart of the Creek nation, and directed 
him to remain on the defensive and turn his 
attention chiefly "to the security of Mobile.'' 
The correspondence of General Wilkinson, 
General Flournoy, Judge Toulmin, Colonel 
George S. Gaines, Colonel John M'Kee, and 
all the leading men on the frontier, refer to 
this opinion of Colonel Hawkins. He be- 
lieved that it would be a mere civil war for 
power among the chiefs and tribal factions, 
and that he would be able to restrain them. 
He continued to cherish this opinion until 
menaced with danger that compelled him to 
remove his family into Georgia and with- 
draw from his post. He was an old and 
faithful oflicer — a man of fine sense — a ster- 



g4 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ling patriot, and of cool and unflinching 
courage. He loved the Indians ; they had 
great confidence in him ; but he was, unhap- 
pily, deceived on this occasion. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. QQ 



CHAPTER IV. 

Adventures on the Trail. — Narrow Escape. — Mosely's Wife. — Sam 
Manac's Deposition. — High-head Jim. — The Jerks. — Peter 
M' Queen. —Colonel Caller.— Battle of Burnt Corn.— Death of 
Ballard. — Captain Dale wounded. — Heroism of Glass. — Colo- 
nel Caller and Major Wood. 

I WAS still engaged in moving immigrants 
to the Mississippi Territory through the 
Creek nation. Toward the close of 1812, 
after having moved Colonel Jo Phillips and 
family to Point Jackson, on the Tombigbee, 
I started my teams back to Georgia, and went 
down to Pensacola. I learned there that the 
Indians of the lower towns were becoming 
every day more hostile and discontented, and 
that the Spanish authorities were secretly 
supplying them with arms and ammunition. 
Returning from Pensacola to get on the 
Georgia trail, I met a party of white men 
who had just buried one Daly, who had been 
murdered by the Indians. They exhorted 
me to return to the settlements on Tombig- 
bee. My business, however, compelled me 



g5 . LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to proceed, and I concluded to lay by dur- 
ing the day and travel by night. About 
midnight, near the forks of the Wolf-path — 
a noted trail in those days — I perceived a 
light, and at the same moment a dog gave 
the alarm. It was very dark, but, distinct- 
ly hearing footsteps aj)proaching, I rode off 
some forty steps and dismounted, placing my 
horse between me and the Indians in the 
event of their firing, and at the same time 
transferring from my saddle-bags to my per- 
son a pocket-book containing eight hundred 
dollars, resolved to save my life and money 
too, if I could. They advanced within thir- 
ty paces, and paused ; but, hearing no sound, 
one cried out, "He has gone back," and they 
went rapidly on the path I had traveled. 
Fortunately, it was too dark to note the foot- 
prints of my horse, and to this circumstance, 
under Providence, I owe my life. As soon 
as they were out of ear-shot I pushed cau- 
tiously forward, and got to Samuel Manac's^ 
a friendly half-breed, on Catoma Creek, about 
daybreak. He informed me that the road 
was beset, and that it would be difficult to 
get through. The Shawnee poison had al- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^7 

ready begun to work. The hostile portion 
of the Indians were in arms in small parties, 
murdering friendly Indians and whites. I 
concealed myself that day, but traveled all 
night, and about daybreak lighted at Bob 
Mosely's stand, which stood at the edge of 
Peter M 'Queen's town. M 'Queen was a 
half-blood, of property and influence, shrewd, 
sanguinary, and deceitful, and had already 
declared for war. Mosely's wife — a most 
excellent, kind - hearted woman, niece of 
M 'Queen — soon brought me a cup of coffee, 
and contriving to dispatch two Indian lads, 
who were present, on some errand, she whis- 
pered to me that her uncle was going to war 
on the white people, and had sworn that he 
would kill me on sight for bringing so many 
settlers into the country. The very party I 
had just escaped he had sent to watch the 
path for me. I immediately took to the 
woods, hiding during the day and traveling 
by night. On one occasion I took the wrong 
trail, and rode plump up to a band of hos- 
tiles at We-tum-kee ; but they were so ab- 
sorbed in a war-dance I got off without be- 
ing discovered. I finally reached M 'Intosh's 



68 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in safety, and dispatched a runner to Colonel 
Hawkins with the news ; but he was even 
then firmly persuaded that the hostilities of 
the Creeks would only be directed against 
each other — that it was a war of factions, 
headed by M 'Queen on one side and the Big 
Warrior on the other, and would not be di- 
rected against the whites. He appreciated 
the many noble traits of the Indians, but 
never understood their perfidy in war, nor 
the skill with which they can disguise their 
intentions. 

My next enterprise was to move Judge 
Saffold and family to the Tombigbee in June, 
1813. I knew that a detachment of troops 
had been ordered from Fort Mitchell to Mo- 
bile, and my plan was to obtain their con- 
voy. When our party reached the fort the 
detachment was two days in advance ; but 
we pushed on in their wake, and I had the 
satisfaction of lodging the judge and his es- 
timable family safely at their new home. 
On this journey I saw enough to satisfy me 
that the Indians had determined on war. 
Sam Manac, a noted half-breed of the na- 
tion, made to me and John E. Mvles the fol- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. gg 

lowing statement on the 13th of July, 1813, 
which I forwarded to Colonel James Caller, 
commanding the 15th regiment of militia, 
Mississippi Territory. 

MANAC'S STATEMENT. 

^' About the last of October thirty north- 
ern Indians came with Tecumseh, who said 
he had been sent by his brother the Prophet, 
the servant of the Great Spirit. They at- 
tended our great council at Took-a-batcha. 
I was there three days, but every day he re- 
fused to deliver his talk, saying that ' the sun 
had traveled too far.' The day after I left 
the ground he delivered it. 

"It was not until about December follow- 
ing that our people began to dance the war- 
dance. It has been the practice of the Mus- 
cogees to dance after war, not before. In 
December about forty of our warriors begun 
this northern custom, and my brother-in-law, 
Francis, who pretends to be a prophet, at 
the head of them ; now, more than half of 
the Creek nation engage in this dance. I 
drove some steers to Pensacola not long 
since, and during my absence my brother- 



70 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in-law and sister, who have joined the war 
party, came to my plantation, and carried 
away my best horses and cattle, and thirty- 
six negroes. A few days since I fell in with 
a party from the Autassee towns on the Tal- 
lapoosa, led by High-head Jim, bound for 
Pensacola for ammunition. He came up, 
shook me by the hand, and immediately be- 
gan to tremble and jerk in every part of his 
body. Even the muscles of his face and the 
calves of his legs were convulsed, and his 
whole frame seemed to be drawn up and 
knotted by spasms. This practice was first 
taught to Francis by a Shawnee prophet, 
and began to be practiced by the war party 
in May last. High-head Jim asked me what 
I meant to do. In apprehension of my life, 
I answered, ' I will sell my property and join 
you.' He then said they were bound for 
Pensacola with a letter from a British gen- 
eral to the Spanish governor, which would 
enable them to get all the arms they needed ; 
that this letter had been given to the Little 
Warrior when he was in Canada last year, 
and when he was killed it was sent to the 
prophet Francis. He said that, after get- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^1 

ting what was wanted from Pensacola, the 
Indians on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Black 
Warrior would attack the settlements in the 
forks of Tombigbee and Alabama ; that the 
Cherokees would attack theTennesseeans,the 
Seminoles the Georgians, and the Choctaws 
the settlements on the Mississippi. He said, 
likewise, that the war party had resolved to 
kill the Big Warrior, Alexander and James 
Curnell, Captain Isaacs, William M'Intosh, 
the Mad Dragoon's son, the Little Prince, 
Spoko-Kangee, Tallasee-Thic-si-co, and oth- 
ers who had listened to the talk of the whites. 
High-head Jim said that Peter M 'Queen, 
when all the parties for Pensacola got to- 
gether, would have three hundred warriors, 
and on his return would destroy the Tensaw 
settlements. " 

The effect that my communication had 
may be seen from the following letter : 

To brigadier General Claiborne, or officer command- 
ing Mississippi Volunteers : 
'' Sir, — Inclosed is a copy of letters from 
Judge Toulmin, John Pitchlyn, and Mush- 
alatubbee (Choctaw chief), and the state- 



72 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ment of Sam Dale and John E. Myles. In 
consequence of this information, we have 
deemed it advisable to call out the militia 
and attack M 'Queen's party on its return 
from Pensacola. Unless this decisive step 
is taken, our settlements will be broken up. 
We set out on Thursday morning, and will 
have a battle before you can possibly arrive. 
We are badly provided, but well disposed. 
Pray, sir, send us such relief as you can. 

"James Caller, Col, Commandant. 

"Wm. M 'Grew, jLzezti^. Colonel^ Clarice 
Co.lhthReg.M.,M.T:' 

At this time the settlers about Point 
Jackson, on Tombigbee, were building a 
stockade, called Fort Madison, for the pro- 
tection of their families. Among these I 
raised about fifty men, and joined Colonel 
Caller and his command, the whole compris- 
ing about one hundred and eighty men, the 
principal officers being Major Wood, Capts. 
Ben. Smoot, Bailey Heard, David Cart- 
wright, Bailey Dixon (half-breed), Lieut. 
Creagh, Pat. May, Wm. Bradberry, Rob. 
Caller, Zach. Philips, Jourdan, M'Farlane, 
and others. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 73 

We marclied on to what was known in 
those times as the Wolf-path, and crossed 
Burnt-corn Creek. Here I volunteered to 
go ahead, and ascertain the force of the In- 
dians, and the proper position to fight them. 
My offer was treated lightly; one officer 
swore that we could ''whip the d — d red- 
skins any where, and whip them to h-11." 
I replied, " Sam Dale can go as near h-U as 
any of you ; you are on the road there, and 
may go ahead and be d — d. '' I then walked 
off. After much debate, it was decided that 
I should go ; not, as I wished, with one 
trusty comrade, but with fifteen others. I 
disapproved the order, but of course obeyed. 
We moved cautiously, and in about an hour 
the officer who had so contemptuously de- 
rided my proposition rode ahead of me, most 
probably construing my caution as coward- 
ice. It fired me in an instant. ''Halt, 
sir," I shouted. "Fall back, or I will blow 
you through. On this scout no man goes 
ahead of me." He slunk back. We soon 
fell in with an advanced party of the In- 
dians, with pack-mules. They dropped back, 

and, having dispatched a messenger to the 

D 



74 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

rear, we were soon joined by our main body, 
who came rushing up in confusion. In a 
few minutes the war-whoop was sounded 
from the reed-brakes, the Indians being, for 
the most part, invisible, while our men were 
in the open pine woods. Early in the en- 
gagement I shot a very stout warrior, and 
while reloading my piece I received a ball 
in my left side, which ranged round the ribs, 
and lodged against my backbone. I vomit- 
ed a good deal of blood, and felt easier, and 
one of my men reloaded my rifle for me. 
By this time our men had secured many of 
the pack-mules, and would have obtained a 
complete victory, when some one unfortu- 
nately, in a loud voice, sounded the word 
"re^rea^," a word that can never be uttered 
among raw and undisciplined troops in the 
presence of an enemy without fatal conse- 
quences. On this occasion a general panic 
ensued, and the militia — who had fought 
bravely, and would have charged into the 
swamp had they been ordered so to do — 
hearing the fatal word, fled from the field. 
My boasting bully was the first to fly. I 
hailed him as he passed, and would have 








BAIXAIO) AVKNGKn. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 77 

shot him if I could have raised my arm. 
Some fugitive had carried off my horse. I 
mounted a pony and was riding away, when 
I saw a friend named Ballard closely pur- 
sued by a party of Indians. I resolved to 
save him or perish. Captain Bailey and 
Jack Evans — two of the bravest men that 
ever lived, and both of whom afterward fell, 
the one at Fort Mims, the other on the 
Alabama — swore it was madness; but I 
dashed back, followed by a bold fellow 
named Glass, whose brother had been killed 
by my side at the moment I was shot. The 
savages were in full chase of Ballard and 
Lenoir, the latter making rapid headway; 
Ballard, who had been wounded, running 
slowly. I told Glass to save Lenoir; I 
would go to Ballard. I had got within 
about fifty yards of him, the Indians being 
within ten feet of him, when he suddenly 
leaped aside and shot down the foremost 
savage ; the others instantly dispatched him. 
In the mean time Lenoir had vaulted up 
behind Glass, and they rode to me. Seeing 
the fall of poor Ballard, and the Indians 
scalping him, Glass cried out, ''O Lord 



78 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Jesus, if my gun was loaded!" "Here's 
mine," said Lenoir, "with fourteen buck- 
shot in her/' Glass made for a tree within 
fifty yards, and fired. The warrior with the 
reeking scalp of Ballard in his hand fell, 
and we made good our retreat. 

The following official letters, illustrating 
the state of the country and the causes that 
led to the battle of Burnt Corn, have never 
been published : 

" Cantonment, Mount Yernon, July 29, 1813. 
"Dear General,-^ Agreeably to your or- 
ders, I proceeded to this place yesterday, 
and found the whole country in commotion. 
A large majority of the Creeks have declared 
for war, and the settlements here will doubt- 
less be speedily attacked. Peter M 'Queen, 
with some three hundred warriors, has been 
to Pensacola, and obtained large supplies of 
ammunition from the Spanish governor. 
This we have on the testimony of David 
Tate and William Peirce, respectable citi- 
zens, who were secretly in the town. To 
obtain this large supply M 'Queen handed 
the governor a list of the towns ready to 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 79 

take up arms, making 4800 warriors. Hear- 
ing this news, Colonel Caller collected 180 
men, and set out on Sunday last to intercept 
them. 

''I have dispatched an express to Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Bowyer, Mobile Point, to send 
up the volunteers to this place. About 
twenty families have forted at Minis' house, 
on Tensaw, and I have sent Lieutenant Os- 
born, with sixteen men — all I could spare — 
to assist in erecting the stockade. All com- 
munication between this and the eastward 
has been cut off. The Indians have shot 
the post-rider, and seized the mails and sent 
them to Pensacola. 

*' With great respect and friendship, 

^'Joseph Carson, CoL Volunteers. 
" Brig. Gen. Claiborne. 

"P.S. — I have this moment received the 
inclosed letter from Lieutenant Osborn :* 

" ' Mims' Stockade, July 28, 1813. 

'''Dear Colonel, — I am sorry to inform 
you that ten men of the detachment that 

* This gallant young officer was from Wilkinson County, and 
soon after fell in the attack on Fort Mims. 



LIFE AND TIMES OF 

lately marched against M 'Queen have re- 
turned, and report that they were yesterday 
defeated. The battle took place on the east- 
ern side of the Escambia Hiver, near Burnt- 
corn Creek, about forty miles in a right line 
from this post, and below it. It commenced 
at one o'clock and lasted until three P.M. 
Our men fought in a very disadvantageous 
position. Colonel Caller and Major Wood 
are missing, supposed to have been killed; 
and Captain Sam Dale, Hobert Lewis, 
Alex. Hollinger, Wm. Baldwin, and others, 
wounded ; number of killed not reported. 

" 'This stockade is in good condition, and 
I am sure will be well defended. We are 
all in good health and spirits. God bless 
you. 

'''S. M. OsBORN, Lt Comni'g. 
" ' Col. Jos. Carson.' " 

As soon as General Claiborne (who was 
then advancing by forced marches from 
Baton Kouge with a regiment of Mississip- 
pi and Louisiana volunteers) reached Fort 
Stoddart, and learned the uncertainty that 
hung over the fate of Caller and Wood, he 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. gl 

wrote to Dickson Bailey, David Tate, and 
Sam Manac, friendly half-breeds, and they 
dispatched parties in all directions. The 
unfortunate officers were found, about the 
10th of August, almost dead and partially 
deranged. Colonel Caller was long a con- 
spicuous man in the politics of the Missis- 
sippi Territory, often representing Washing- 
ton County in the Legislature. His son-in- 
law, the late Gabriel Moore, of Madison, was 
afterward Governor of Alabama and United 
States Senator. No man who knew Caller 
and Wood intimately doubted their courage ; 
but the disaster drew down on them much 
scurrility. Major Wood, who was as sensi- 
tive as brave, had not fortitude to despise 
the sneer of the world, and sought forgetful- 
ness, as too many good men do, in habitual 
intemperance. 

This was the first battle of the war. There 
was no commanding officer then on the fron- 
tier to give orders. The movement origi- 
nated with Colonel Caller, and the patriotic 
settlers promptly responded to his summons. 
They fought bravely, and, but for that un- 
fortunate word "retreat" — never ascertained 

D2 



32 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

with whom it originated — they would have 
annihilated M 'Queen's party, secured all his 
supplies, and, in all probability, prevented 
the war. It is ungenerous to sneer at such 
an error among untrained militia, who never 
afterward retreated against any disparity of 
force, when similar errors and disasters have 
often happened to the best-trained armies. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 83 



CHAPTER V. 

The War Department. — Its Imbecility and Negligence. — Govern- 
or Holmes. — The Mails in 1812. — Major General Flournoy. — 
Smugglers. — Lafitte. — New Orleans in 1813. — Brigadier Gen- 
eral Claiborne. — March from Baton Kouge. — Transports his 
Troops and supplies the Sick at his own Expense. — Arrives 
on the Alabama. — Applies for Orders to march into the Creek 
Nation. — Is refused. — Ordered to act on the defensive. — Mans 
the several Stockades. — Death of Major Ballenger. — George S. 
Gaines. 

The battle of Burnt Corn, and hostile dem- 
onstrations in every quarter of the Creek 
nation, at length engaged the attention of 
the federal authorities. They had been, 
and generally have been, singularly indiffer- 
ent to the defense of the southern frontier. 
Their apathy and ignorance, if carefully 
traced, would cast a deep stain on the his- 
tory of our country. They are responsible 
for much of the blood shed on the frontiers 
of Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas. 
They paid no attention to the suspicious 
mission of Tecumseh, and permitted him to 
station in the Creek towns his emissaries 



34 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and fanatics, notoriously in the pay of the 
British government. They allowed British 
and Spanish functionaries to supply the sav- 
ages with arms and ammunition ; the local 
agent, Colonel Hawkins, exhibited the in- 
firmity of his employers, and was blind and 
deaf to what was transpiring around him ; 
and not until the patriotic people of Tombig- 
bee, led by Colonel Caller, attacked M 'Queen, 
and, though worsted, succeeded in seizing a 
large portion of his supplies, could the inter- 
position of government be obtained. The 
condition of the settlements had become de- 
plorable. Immigration was suspended ; the 
mails cut off; several murders had occurred; 
the fields were abandoned ; houses burned ; 
cattle and crops destroyed, and the citizens 
crowded into ill-constructed stockades with 
insufiicient supplies, afraid to venture out 
for provisions, and scourged within with ty- 
phus, scarlatina, and dysentery. The Creeks 
were in arms ; and the Choctaws, then a pow- 
erful and warlike tribe, extending fi:*om the 
Tombigbee to the Bayou Pierre, and from 
near the sea-shore to the Tallahatchie, were 
growing discontented. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. g5 

At length Governor Holmes, of the Mis- 
sissippi Territory, whose head-quarters were 
at Washington, in Adams County, between 
which and Tombigbee there was only a 
monthly post,* received authority to call for 
volunteers to be mustered into the service 
of the United States. He promptly issued 
the call, and it was promptly responded to. 
The governor made every effort in his pow- 

* The mails were proverbially slow. The merchants of New 
Orleans, in a memorial to the Post-master General in 1812, stated 
that "letters from the eastern cities via Fort Stoddart, post-marked 
early in November, arrived on the 22d of January. The mail from 
Natchez, via Fort Adams, arrives once a fortnight, sometimes not 
once in three weeks." Even steam-boats were slow subjects at that 
day. The "New Orleans," low pressure, the first steamer that at- 
tempted to ascend the river, left the city for Natchez on the 23d of 
January, 1812; a week afterward the "Louisiana Advertiser" ex- 
ultingly said, "We are enabled to state that she can stem the 
cun-ent at the rate of three miles an hour ; she went from this city 
to the Houma, 75 miles, in 23 hours." 

In March, 1812, Livingston & Fulton completed a new boat at 
Pittsburg, and the "Advertiser" states, as a remarkable fact, that 
"she was tried, with 140 tons of merchandise on board, and ad- j 
vanced at the rate of three miles an hour against a current of two i 
and a half." 

The Kentucky boatmen, returning home on foot after selling out \ 
their flat-boats and cargo in New Orleans or Natchez, often made 
wagers to beat the post to Nashville, and generally won. The 
celebrated walking Johnson, the greatest pedestrian of his day, 
beat the mail three times, on a wager, between Natchez and Nash- 
ville. 



86 I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

er. He was a native of Frederick County, 
Ya., and represented the famous "Tenth 
Legion'' district in Congress when he re- 
ceived his commission from President Jef- 
ferson. He was a man of sterling virtue, 
and rendered eminent services during the 
war. 

Colonel F. L. Claiborne, of Adams Coun- 
ty (who had served under Wayne in the first 
regiment U. S. infantry, commanded by Col- 
onel John F. Hamtramck, and had been pro- 
moted for gallantry in the great battle of the 
20th of August, 1794), was appointed briga- 
dier general of volunteers on the 8th of 
March, 1813, and ordered by General Wilkin- 
son to repair to Baton Houge. He was kept 
there until the 28th of June, when Major Gen- 
eral Flournoy"^ (who had succeeded Wilkin- 

* Major General Thomas Flournoy resided at Augusta, Geor- 
gia, a distinguished member of the bar. He was a gallant and 
accomplished gentleman, of high personal character. He has been 
much censured for inaction and indecision on the frontier. He 
was in feeble health. His force was wholly inadequate to the de- 
mands upon it. His means of obtaining information, and of com- 
municating with the War Department, and with the state and ter- 
ritorial authorities in his extensive district, were precarious and 
slow. He was often destitute of money and militaiy stores. He 
was early misled by the illusiA'e dream of Colonel Hawkins of the 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. §7 

son in the command of the seventh military 
district) ordered him to march for Mount Yer- 

advanced "civilization" and "pacific intentions" of the Creeks; 
and even after the massacre of Fort Mims he did not entirely dis- 
card the illusion, but held on to it until the term of service of the 
volunteers had expired. The prime source of his difficulties, how- 
ever, was at Washington. Even General Jackson — the most en- 
ergetic officer ever in the service of the United States — was scarce- 
ly a match for the apathy, ignorance, and neglect of the War De- 
partment. To this the failure of General Flournoy may be main- 
ly attributed. A few years since, shortly before his death, he ad- 
dressed me the following letter, giving some curious details of the 
famous Lafitte, and the state of affairs in New Orleans : 

"I know of no one now in life acquainted with the difficulties 
I had to contend with when in command of the seventh military 
district. Your father (General Claiborne) defended me against 
the calumnies of my enemies. So did Governor Claiborne, Com- 
modores Patterson and Shaw, Edward Livingston, and many oth- 
er distinguished men with whom I acted in the public service. My 
conduct received the sanction of the President, and of all to whom 
I was accountable. That I had enemies in New Orleans is true, 
but they were likewise the enemies of their country — Frenchmen, 
Spaniards, and EngHshmen disaffected to the republic — hating or 
not comprehending our institutions — willing to give, and, in the 
hour of trial, actually giving ' aid and comfort' to the enemy. Be- 
sides, there were professed smugglers and capitalists engaged in 
illegal traffic, who carried on a commerce with our enemies, and, 
at every opportunity, s^ippUed them with provisions. 

" Soon after I repau-ed to New Orleans I perceived that I must 
submit to this state of things, or apply even stronger measures than 
strict law would authorize. Governor Claiborne — who was almost 
enthusiastic in his Americanism — advised me to declare martial 
law, and take every thing in my own hands. I believed, however, 
that I could put matters right by adopting less objectionable meap- 



33 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

non, on Mobile River. No arrangements 
had been made to enable him to execute this 

Tires. I posted guards at suitable places, and issued an order that 
no vessel should leave port without my written passport. They 
soon began to forge my signature, and became so expert that I 
could scarcely distinguish it myself. I then directed Colonel 
M'Rea, in command at the Balize, to examine every vessel, and 
detain them if suspicious, my passport to the contrary notwith- 
standing. Soon after, a Spaniard, ostensibly bound for Vera Cruz, 
arrived at the Balize. He was brought to, and presented my pass- 
port and his manifest. It called for some three or four barrels of 
flour only, but in his vessel was found over three hundred barrels 
of flour, and other provisions, for the enemy, who lay not far from 
the mouth of the river. He was sent back to New Orleans. The 
owner, a resident citizen, brought an action against me, and ob- 
tained judgment for several thousand dollars, which was subse- 
quently paid out of the treasury of the United States. 

' ' While the British fleet of obseiTation lay ofi" the mouth of the 
river, a British officer visited the city, and actually dined, several 
days in succession, at the public table where I was present. His 

presence in the city was known to , and , and , but 

only came to my knowledge after he had left. I will state anoth- 
er incident to show how I was beset, within and without, by scoun- 
drels and traitors. A man called Lafitte, reputed to be connect- 
ed with smugglers* and pirates, I determined to apprehend. I 
had a consultation with the governor, and we fixed upon a plan. 
I learned that he kept a mistress on Conti Street, and that he was 
expected to visit her on a certain night. I sent a corporal and six 
men to arrest him, but failed. The next day I ascertained that 
Lafitte was in the house and in bed at the time, but, on hearing 

a In 1812, the Grand Jury of New Orleans, in their report, presented smug- 
gling as one of the great evUs of the times, carried on almost publicly. The 
jury was composed of the first men in the city, viz., David Urquhart, William 
Nott, Joseph M'Neil, Beverley Chew, J. C. Widerstrandt, Alex. Milne, sen., Wil- 
liam Simpson, L. M. Sagoiy, M. Fortier, sen., G. Dubuys, Rowland Cr.nic:, Ju- 
dah Tours, R. D. Shepherd, S. H. Stackhouse, William Kenner. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 39 

order. He had five hundred and fifty men, 
with their baggage and camp equipage, to 
transport through an unsettled country, and 
neither teams, forage, money, or supplies ac- 
companied the order. The War Department 
seems to have expected the Territory to de- 
fend itself, and pay its own troops, though 
they had been regularly mustered into the 
service of the United States. 

The following letters will show the miser- 

the approach of my guard, had leaped out of a window and into a 
well close by, where he remained, with his head only out of water, 
until the guard retired. I likewise received a message from him, 
stating that he knew me well ; that he crossed me on my walks 
every night, and could slay me, or have me slain, at any moment, 
either in the streets or in my quarters ; but that, as he knew I was 
acting from a sense of duty, he would spare me if T would take no 
farther cognizance of him. Having failed in my plan. Governor 
Claiborne said he would see what he could do in the matter ; that 
Lafitte had comrades who would betray him. He offered a re- 
ward of five hundred dollars for his apprehension. Next day, a 
proclamation, signed Lafitte, appeared, offering five thousand dol- 
lars for the governor's head ! He added a postscript, however, 
stating that this was mere bagatelle. He- was subsequently par- 
doned by the governor, and assisted in the defense of New Orleans. 
I know not what became of him thereafter. I could mention many 
incidents of a similar character, but I forbear. These I have 
thought fit to name in thankfulness for your sentiments for me, 
and the respect I feel for the memory of your father and imcle. I 
am an old man, indifferent to fame, but alive to the impressions of 
friendship, and under that influence I tender you my best wishes 
for your happiness and prosperity here and hereafter." 



90 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

able condition of the U. S. Quarter-master's 
Department of that day : 

"Bidler's Plains, 21 miles from Baton ) 
Rouge, July Sth, 1813. ) 

'' Sir, — I arrived here last evening, pre- 
ceded by 250 men of Colonel Carson's regi- 
ment, Mississippi Volunteers. The rear will 
be up to-morrow, under Lieutenant Colonel 
Ross, who will proceed with the regiment to 
Liberty, where he will meet a wagon-train 
from Natchez. I shall join the command at 
Liberty. It has rained every day for six 
weeks ; the waters are very high, and the 
roads intolerable. Already the two hundred 
dollars advanced by the quarter-master have 
been expended for wagon-hire. I will en- 
deavor, however, to provide for the necessary 
disbursements of the march. 

"Very respectfully, &c., &c., 
"F. L. Claiborne, Brig. Gen, Vols. 

"Maj. Gen.Flournoy." 

To the Officer in command at Liberty^ Mississipjn 

Territory. 

"Near Fort Stoddart, August 13, 1813. 

''Sir, — I write for the express purpose 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. gi 

of saying that under no circumstances must 
the sick who have been left at Liberty suffer 
for want of any comfort. Should Surgeon 
Wm. R. Cox be in need of medicine, direct 
him to send an express to his father, Dr. 
John Cox, "^Washington, and I will see the 
amount paid. If you can not procure gro- 
ceries and other supplies from the dealers in 
town without cash, apply, in my name, to 
my friends Col. Nelson, H. M. Harper, and 
Thomas Waggoner, or either of them, to fur- 
nish you, or assist you in obtaining them, 
and I will be personally accountable. 

"F. L. Claiborne, ^W^. Gen.Vols.'" 

On the SOthof July the Volunteers reached 
Mount Vernon, and the general immediate- 
ly put himself in communication with the 
most intelligent citizens on the frontier, to 

* Dr. John C. Cox, originally a surgeon in the British army, 
settled in the town of Washington at an early day. He was a 
man of some eccentricity, but of veiy decided talents and great 
eminence in his profession. He died some years after the war, 
universally deplored. As a surgeon and physician he never had 
his superior in the South. His son was a man of very great 
ability and noble traits of character, who died early, in Natchez, 
at the head of the profession. The descendants of Dr. John Cox 
are still numerous and highly respectable in Adams Countv. 



92 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ascertain its condition, and tlie points that 
should be occupied for the security of the 
settlements. Although ordered to march 
from Baton Rouge for the express purpose 
of "co-operating in the defense of Mobile," 
his attention Avas immediately drawn to the 
frontier. The communications from the 
United States Agent to General Flournoy 
had unfortunately persuaded the latter that 
the agitation among the Creeks was wholly 
an intestine feud, and would only, in the 
worst contingency, occasion civil war among 
themselves ; and this delusion, it will be 
seen, influenced the decisions of the com- 
manding general. The citizens on the fron- 
tier universally deprecated this opinion, and 
General Claiborne adopted their views. He 
wrote Colonel Hawkins, United States 
Agent, as follows: 

" Cantonment, Mount Vernon, ) 
near Fort Stoddart, Aug. 14, 1813. f 

" On the 30th ult. I arrived here with the 

Volunteers. I hope to be re-enforced by the 

7th regiment U. S. Infantry in a few days. 

I can not say what will be the determination 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 93 

of Major General Flournoy, under whose 
orders I act, but I hope to receive permis- 
sion to strike for the heart of the Creek na- 
tion, '"* 

In reply to his application, General Flour- 
noy, in a letter dated Head-quarters, Bay of 
St. Louis, August 10, 1813, wrote : "I shall 
send the 7th regiment by water to Mobile. 
I fear that it is the design of the Spanish 
government to draw our force to the upper 
country by playing off the Indians against 
us there, and then to make an attempt to re- 
take Mobile. To guard against this. Major 
Gibson will be directed to remain with the 
7th at Mobile till farther orders. I have 
to entreat you not to permit your zeal for 
the public good (which I know you have at 
heart as much as any man) to draw you into 
acts of indiscretion. Your wish to penetrate 
into the Indian country^ luith a view of com- 
7neneing the war^ does not meet my appro- 
bation; and I again repeat, our operations 
must he confined to defensive operations,'''' 

General Claiborne had likewise urged the 
commanding general to call out the militia 



94 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

for the defense of the menaced settlements, 
but, in the same communication. General 
Flournoy said, "I am not authorized to 
make the call." 

Under these restrictions, General Clai- 
borne adopted the only measure of relief in 
his power by distributing his command 
among the several stockades to which the 
inhabitants had fled. He dispatched one 
hundred and fifty men to Fort Mims, under 
Major Beasley; one hundred and fifty to 
Fort Madison, under Colonel Carson ; a 
company, under Captain Abram M. Scott, 
to St. Stephen's ; and a detachment, under 
Captain Ben. Dent, to Oke-a-tapa, on the 
Choctaw line, to observe the disposition of 
that powerful tribe, whose junction with 
the Creeks was generally apprehended, and 
would have been fatal to the whole territory. 

This distribution of troops — made by 
General Claiborne on his own responsibility, 
in consideration of the exposed condition of 
the citizens — has been censured by some 
critics ; but no humane officer, seeing hund- 
reds of families forted in feeble stockades, 
eighty and a hundred miles apart, and 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 95 

threatened every day with the tomahawk, 
could have hesitated. Tlie force thus dis- 
tributed was required not only for the de- 
fense of the women and children, but to en- 
able the men to gather their corn and cattle, 
without which famine would have swept 
away the whole population. This distribu- 
tion was according to immemorial usage in 
Indian wars on this continent, and he had 
ordered more men to each stockade than had 
ever been assembled at any one post in the 
Northwest in Wayne's campaigns, or during 
the last war with Great Britain, or in the 
sanguinary settlement of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee. 

On the 2d of August he wrote General 
Flournoy: "The inhabitants have all taken 
shelter in stockades. Few of them are now 
capable of defense. They are crowded with 
women and children, who are every day 
threatened with the scalp ing-knife. I have 
taken the responsibility of distributing my 
small force for their defense. I have but 
eighty men now at head-quarters, and the 
presence of the 7th is highly desirable. 
Should you conclude to re-enforce me with 



96 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

it, and will authorize me to enter the nation, 
I will do so in ten days, and give to the fron- 
tiers peace, and to the government as much 
of the Creek country as it desires. A strong 
force should enter the nation before they are 
every where in arms. With a thousand 
men, and your authority to march, I pledge 
myself to burn the principal towns. Three 
months hence it may be difficult to effect 
with three thousand men what may now be 
done with a third of that number." 

General Flournoy answered: "You may 
dispose of your volunteers according to your 
judgment, but, for the reasons. stated, viz., a 
fear that the Spaniards design attacking 
Mobile and Mobile Point, I must enjoin you 
not to give any orders or interfere with the 
instructions to the officers at those posts." 

Having intercepted several letters from 
disaffected Choctaws, and being apprised by 
George S. Gaines, then United States Fac- 
tor, of the growing discontent of that tribe, 
General Claiborne took the responsibility 
of dispatching Major Ballenger, of the 24th 
United States Infantry, to visit the Choc- 
taws, who were then balancing between war 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 97 

and peace. He had an interview with Push- 
amataha at Pierre Jugan's on the 15th of 
August, but, unfortunately, died there three 
days afterward. By the influence of Mr. 
Gaines, Colonel M'Kee, and John Pitchlyn, 
United States Interpreter, this distinguished 
chief was induced to visit Mount Vernon, 
where he was received by General Claiborne 
with military honors, and presented with the 
uniform and accoutrements of a brigadier. 
This ultimately secured his co-o]3eration, 
with a chosen band of warriors, against the 
Creeks, and the neutrality of the rest of his 
nation.* Had the Choctaws taken up arms 
against us, in less than thirty days the whole 
country from the Tombigbee to the Missis- 
sippi would have been steeped in blood. 

* Colonel George S. Gaines is still living, a citizen of Perry 
County, Miss. Modest, unobtrusive, intelligent, a model citizen, 
whose whole life has been passed, without reproach, in the service 
of his countiy. He rendered eminent services during the war. 

John Pitchh'n is dead. He was ever the faithful friend of the 
whites, and the best friend of his own countrymen. Our govern- 
ment relied implicitly upon him. He has left several sons, who 
reside in the Choctaw nation west, men of talents and of high po- 
sition, who reflect credit on their ancient and honorable name. 

Colonel John M'Kee, agent for the Chickasaws, a man of fine 
sense, energy, and patriotism, exerted great influence over the Choc- 
taws and Chickasaws, and secured their aid or neutrality. 

E 



93 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The consternation in the western portion of 
the Territory was such that many of the citi- 
zens abandoned their homes and crossed the 
Mississippi. In Claiborne County commit- 
tees of safety were established ; in Natchez 
alarming rumors prevailed; even at Baton 
Rouge there was a general panic. The ne- 
gotiations with Pushamataha, and the visit 
of Colbert, principal chief of the Chickasaws, 
to General Claiborne, who induced him to re- 
main in camp, restored confidence. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 99 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Volunteers. — Unjust Censure. — Vigilance of General Clai- 
borne. — Inspects Fort Mims. — Cautions Major Beasley. — Lieu- 
tenant Chambliss. — Repairs to Fort Easley. — Last Letter of 
Major Beasley. — Fall of Fort Mims. — Dreadful Massacre. — 
Pickett's History of Alabama. — Letter from Judge Toulmin. — 
Militaiy Precedents. 

In reply to another application of General 
Claiborne for troops, the commanding gen- 
eral wrote, ''If Governor Holmes should 
send his militia into the Indian country, he 
must, of course, act on his own responsibili- 
ty ; the army of the United States, and the 
officers commanding it, "must have nothing to 
do tuith it.''' 

In some quarters General Claiborne was 
accused of remaining inactive, and refugee 
Tories, in their comfortable homes, sneered 
at the brave volunteers for skulking behind 
the defenses of a cantonment when they 
should have been marching upon the en- 



100 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

emy. Impartial history at length unfolds 
the official correspondence, and vindicates 
those brave men, most of whom are now 
beyond the reach of flattery or reproach. 

We have seen that the commanding gen- 
eral was restrained by his instructions from 
vigorous measures. His apprehensions were 
of the Spaniards, not the Indians ; and the 
brigadier general, in the face of positive 
orders, dared not move, even though he had 
had an adequate force, without trampling on 
every law of military subordination. Nor 
did General Claiborne have any authority 
to call for the militia. Governor Holmes 
had standing instructions to comply with 
any requisition for drafted men which the 
commanding general of the seventh milita- 
ry district should make. 

As early as August 2d, only two days 
after he reached. Mount Vernon, General 
Claiborne had written to General Flournoy 
for "authority to call for the militia." Gen- 
eral Flournoy wrote, "In answer to your 
request that I would authorize you to call 
out the militia, I have to inform you that I 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. IQl 

am not myself authorized to do so, and if 
you will turn to the regulations of the War 
Department of the 1st of May last you will 
at once perceive it." Such authority had 
formerly been vested in the general com- 
manding, but had been withdrawn. 

Thus baffled at every point, General Clai- 
borne had to rely exclusively on his own 
limited resources. On the 7th of August 
he personally inspected Minis' stockade, and 
issued an order to strengthen the pickets and 
build two additional block-houses. ''To re- 
spect an enemy," says the order, "and pre- 
pare in the best possible way to receive him, 
is the certain means of success.'' 

CEETIFICATE OF LIEUTENANT CHAMBLISS. 

"I certify that I delivered, on the 7th of 
August last, an order from General Clai- 
borne to Major Beasley, commanding Fort 
Minis, instructing him to strengthen the 
pickets, and to build one or two additional 
block-houses. And I farther certify that 
Major Beasley received a letter from General 
Claiborne (who was then on his route to Fort 
Easley) one or two days before the attack on 



X02 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Fort Mims, advising him of the movements 
of the enemy. 

•' Wm. R Chambliss,* Lt Miss. Vol.- 

"July 16th, 1814," 

General Claiborne likewise assumed the 
responsibility of authorizing Major Beasley 
to receive any citizens who would assist in 
the defense of the station, and issue rations 
to them with the other soldiers of his com- 
mand. Under this regulation, the brave half- 
breed, Dixon Bailey, who had distinguished 
himself in the action of Burnt Corn, was re- 

* This gallant officer was one of the few that escaped the mas- 
sacre. He saw Major Beasley, Captain Jack, Captain Middleton, 
Captain Bailey, Lieutenant Osborn, and, indeed, all his comrades, 
fall. When the main building had been seized and set on fire, 
and there was no longer hope, though bleeding with two severe 
wounds, he contrived to escape through the pickets. He received 
two more arrow-heads in his body as he retreated. He took 
shelter in a large pile of brush, and fainted from loss of blood. 
When he came to himself again a party of savages were smoking 
around his hiding-place, and had actually kindled a fire at one 
end of it. Just as the heat became intolerable they went off. He 
contrived to get to Mount Vernon, and afterward to General 
Claiborne's residence near Natchez, where the balls and arrow- 
heads were extracted by Dr. John Cox. He never entirely re- 
covered, though he lived a number of years afterward, highly es- 
teemed, and died in Claiborne County, Miss. Pei*petual honor to 
his memory. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 103 

ceived, with a number of otliers, who imme- 
diately elected him their captain. In the 
same order, General Claiborne directed ^'the 
active employment of scouts ; and that the 
suffering people, whether whites or friendly 
Indians, must be supplied with provisions." 
He attached Cornet Rankin, with one ser- 
geant, one corporal, and six mounted men, 
to Beasley's command, for the special serv- 
ice of scouting. Rankin had long resided 
on the frontier, was familiar with the locali- 
ties, and with the language and habits of the 
Creeks. 

On the 23d of August information reach- 
ed General Claiborne, who was then at St. 
Stephen's, that Fort Easley — a remote and 
feeble stockade — would be attacked. A 
Choctaw Indian, whose veracity was certified 
to by Colonel M'Grew, appeared at Fort 
Madison, and informed Colonel Carson, com- 
manding, that 400 warriors would attack first 
Fort Easley, and then Fort Madison. He 
offered to remain in custody to confirm the 
truth of his statement. Captain Cassity cer- 
tified that he received similar information 
from John Walker, a white man residing in 



104 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the Choctaw nation. Mr. George S. Gaines, 
U. S. Factor for the Choctaws, in a letter to 
Judge Touhnin, communicated the same ru- 
mor. The women and children in Fort Eas- 
ley were almost without defenders ; not more 
than ten or fifteen men remained. This was, 
then, the post of danger. The other stations 
were commanded by tried and intelligent of- 
ficers. Easley's was sixty miles nearer the 
enemy than Fort Mims, and the general de- 
termined to repair to that point. He com- 
mitted Mount Vernon to the charge of Cap- 
tain Kennedy, and v/ith twenty mounted dra- 
goons, and thirty men from Captain Scott^'s 
company, and thirty from Captain Dent's, 
he marched for Easley's Station. From 
Fort Madison he dispatched an express to 
Major Beasley, again enjoining the utmost 
vigilance. This letter was received on the 
29th of August. On the 30th Fort Mims 
fell, and the gallant Beasley, the victim of a 
fatal incredulity, fell with it. On the morn- 
ing of that bloody day, soon after roll-call, 
Major Beasley addressed to General Clai- 
borne the following letter, which will be read 
now for the first time with melancholy in- 
terest : 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. IQ^ 

"Mims' Block-house, Aug. 30, 1813. 

"Sir, — I send inclosed the morning re- 
port of my command. I have imj)roved the 
fort at this place, and made it much stronger 
than when you were here. Pierce's Stock- 
ade is not very strong, but he has erected 
three substantial block-houses. 

"On the 27th, Ensign Davis, who com- 
mands at Hanson's Mills, wrote : ' We shall, 
by to-morrow, be in such a state of defense 
that we shall not be afraid of any number 
of Indians.' 

"There was a false alarm here yesterday. 
Two negro boys, belonging to Mr. Randon, 
were out some distance from the fort, mind- 
ing some beef-cattle, and reported that they 
saw a great number of Indians, painted, run- 
ning and whooping toward Pierce's Mill. The 
conclusion was that they knew the mill fort 
to be more vulnerable than this, and had 
determined to make their attack there first. 
I dispatched Captain Middleton, with ten 
mounted men, to ascertain the strength of 
the enemy, intending, if they were not too 
numerous, to turn out the most of our force 
here, and march to the relief of Pierce's 

E2 



100 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Mill. But the alarm has proved to be false. 
What gave some plausibility to the report at 
first was, that several of Randon's negroes 
had been previously sent up to his planta- 
tion for corn, and had reported it to be full 
of Indians, committing every kind of havoc ; 
but I now doubt the truth of that report. 

''I was much pleased with the appear- 
ance of my men at the time of the alarm yes- 
terday, when it was expected every moment 
that the Indians would appear. They very 
generally seemed anxious to see them." 

Two hours later, the express having been 
by some accident detained. Major Beasley 
again wrote to the general, assuring him of 
his "ability to maintain the post against any 
number of Indians.'' 

Fatal delusion ! When the express rode 
out, the enemy lay concealed in a deep ra- 
vine in the immediate vicinity of the fated 
fort ! On that terrible 30th of August, pre- 
cisely at twelve o'clock M., eight hundred 
Avarriors, with terrific yells, rushed upon the 
gate. The awful conflict that ensued — the 
heroic gallantry of the oflicers, who fell, otyc 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 1()7 

after the other, until almost all had perished 
— the bravery of the men — the conflagration 
and the massacre — have been often described. 
The most minute and thrilling narrative 
of this tragedy may be found in Pickett's 
"History of Alabama," the work of a fin- 
ished scholar and noble gentleman, recently 
deceased. It is an invaluable contribution 
to the annals of the South, combining the 
startling incidents of romance with the labo- 
rious accuracy of history. He spared nei- 
ther pains nor expense in pursuit of facts, 
and gave to the work several of the best 
years of his matured energies. He fortu- 
nately wrote at a period when many of the 
prominent actors in the scenes he records yet 
survived, and were in familiar communica- 
tion with him ; and he had access to official 
and personal papers and correspondence of 
a perfectly authentic character never before 
published or collated. His book should be 
read by every Southern household, especial- 
ly in Mississippi and Alabama, for it warm- 
ly and conclusively vindicates the calumni- 
ated volunteers of 1812-13. 

In the mean time, the unexpected presence 



108 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

of General Claiborne at Fort Easley deterred 
the Indians, as was afterward ascertained, 
from their contemplated attack on that sta- 
tion, and Fort Madison was too strong. By 
express from Captain Kennedy he received 
the astoundino; intellisfence of the fall of 
Fort Minis — astounding^ because his last 
cautions had been received by Major Beas- 
ley on the day preceding the attack ; because 
the morning report only the day previous 
showed the effective force to be one hundred 
and five men, besides thirty-five at Pierce's 
Mill (in the vicinity), who received orders 
from the fort ; and because, in a letter dated 
only ttvo hours before the assault^ Beasley 
had declared himself able to repel any force 
that might appear ! As far baclv as the 28th 
of July, before Major Beasley and his com- 
mand had entered Fort Mims, Lieutenant 
Osborn, in a letter to Colonel Carson, said, 
"This stockade is in good condition, and I 
am sure will be well defended." And it 
would have been successfully defended but 
for the fatal confidence and contempt of the 
enemy that prevailed, which rendered all 
subsequent gallantry unavailing. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. IQQ 

"The awful massacre at Mims," says 
Judge Toulmin, in a letter to General Clai- 
borne, "will long, I trust, teach the people 
of this country a useful lesson. It will teach 
them that courage without caution is of 
little avail. Never men fought better ; but 
such was the advantage given to the enemy 
by neglecting the most obvious precautions, 
that all their bravery was thrown away. 
Mr. Fletcher Cox (one who escaped) tells 
me that the Indians luere ivitliin thirty steps 
of the gate before they ivere seen,'''' 

In the old Cherokee war, fifteen men, in a 
fort near Nashville, repelled the assault of 
four hundred savages. 

In Wayne's campaign. Fort Recovery — on 
the battle-field of the unfortunate St. Clair, 
far in advance of Grenville, the head-quar- 
ters of the general — was garrisoned by one 
company of infantry and a small detachment 
of artillery. 

Forts Hamilton, St. Clair, and Jefferson 
seldom had more than one company of in- 
fantry, and were often left with only a sub- 
altern's command. They were considered 
secure against any attack made by small 
arms. 



110 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Fort Chicago, on the Illinois, in the heart 
of the savages, was defended by fifty men 
against an overwhelming force of Indians, 
until it was evacuated by order of General 
Hall. 

Fort Madison, besieged by over four 
hundred Potawatomies, was successfully de- 
fended by thirty men ; and about the same 
time seventeen regulars, in a small post at 
Bellefontaine, resisted a similar attack. 

Fort Wayne — a mere picket stockade, 
garrisoned by only one company — resisted 
for several days a combined attack led by 
Tecumseh, and was finally relieved by Gen- 
eral Harrison. 

In September, 1812, Fort Harrison, In- 
diana Territory, was besieged by a large 
body of Indians led by the Proj)het. A 
breach was made in the defenses by the 
burning of a block-house. One company, 
of which only fifteen men were able to do 
duty, defended it for ten days. Of the fif- 
teen men, two attempted to escape, leaped 
the wall, and were shot. This heroic defense 
was made by Captain (afterward President) 
Taylor. 



DRAWING OF FORT MIMS, 

Found among Gen. Claiborne's manuscript papers. 




EEFERENCES. 



9. 
10, 
11. 
12. 
13. 



Block House. 

Pickets cut away by the Indians. 
Guard's Station. 
Guard-house. 
Western Gate, but not up. 
This gate was shut, but a hole 
■was cut through by the Indians. 
Captain Bailey's Station. 
Steadham's House. 
Mrs. Dyer's House. 
Kitchen. 
Mims' House. 
Randon's House. 
Old Gateway — open. 



14. Ensign Chambliss's Tent. ■ 

15. Ensign Gibbs'. 

16. Randon's. 

17. Captain Middleton's. 

18. Captain Jack's Station. 

19. Port-holes taken by Indians. 

20. 21. Port-holes taken by Indians. 

22. Major Beasley's Cabin. 

23. Captain Jack's Company. 

24. Captain Middleton's Company. 

25. "Where Major Beasley fell. 

26. Eastern Gate, where the Indians 

entered. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 113 

On our own frontier, the brave Lieuten- 
ant Bailey, with twelve men, successfully 
defended Sinkfield's house, in the Forks, 
against over one hundred Indians, under the 
Prophet Francis. 

Educated in the tactics of "Wayne, one of 
the most impetuous yet cautious command- 
ers of modern times, and with these prece- 
dents of Indian warfare in view. General 
Claiborne could scarcely credit the fall of 
Fort Mims. With a bleeding heart he gave 
orders to Captain Kennedy to bury the dead. 
The fort, on the morning of the attack, mus- 
tered one hundred and five effective men, 
under picked officers, all of them educated 
men, with an abundant supply of provisions, 
arms, and ammunition. The original fortifi- 
cation was a line of pickets, with one block- 
house, a large dwelling, kitchen, and meat- 
house, and two bastions, placed in position 
to throw upon an enemy a cross fire, in 
whatever direction he might approach. 
These works had been strengthened by ad- 
ditional block-houses and other defenses, as 
the engraving will show. Had the gates 
been kept closed and the men properly post- 



114 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ed in the bastions, all military history teach- 
es that such a force might have kept at bay 
''any number of Indians." The courage of 
Major Beasley amounted almost to despera- 
tion. Although often warned, he turned a 
deaf ear to any notion of danger. At the 
onset of the enemy, in the blaze of three 
hundred rifles and a cloud of arrows, he 
rushed to close the front gate, that opened 
into the outward work, not yet completed. 
There he fell — too soon to perceive his in- 
ability to repel a superior force, by his neg- 
lect now fighting on equal terms — too late 
to enable the gallant officer who succeeded 
him to gain possession of the bastions and 
block-houses, which were now occupied bv 
the enemy. The whole number in the fort, 
of every age, and sex, and color, was two 
hundred and seventy-five, of whom only 
twenty escaped. The bodies of one hundred 
and nine Indians were found around the 
fort, and upward of fifty died of their 
wounds at Burnt Corn Spring, to which 
they retired after the massacre.* 

* Major Daniel Beasley was a Virginian, settled at Greenville, 
Jefferson County, as a lawyer. He was likewise sheriff of the 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 1^5 

The personal narrative of Dale will be 
now resumed. 

county, an intelligent and popular man, with many warm personal 
friends. He had an affair of honor with Mr. Fry, a rising mem- 
ber of the bar, of the same county. They fought opposite Rodney, 
and the latter fell. It was peculiarly distressing, for he was on 
the eve of marriage with a most beautiful woman. This rendered 
Beasley very unhappy. He wrote to General Claiborne to obtain 
a commission in the army. The general appointed him his aid ; 
but Colonel Wood resigning about this time, Major Joseph Car- 
son became colonel, and Beasley was appointed (by President 
Madison) major on the 15th of February, 1813. 



Xlg LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Captain Dale at Fort Madison. — Novel Light-house. — His Reply 
to General Flournoy. — Women on Parade. — Death of Jack 
Evans. — Bill Milfort. — The Canoe Fight.— Jeny Austill. — 
Jim Smith. — Weatherford. — His personal Appearance, Charac- 
ter, and Death. 

I REPAIRED to Fort Madison after the 
affair at Burnt Corn, and suffered much 
from my wound. The fort stood on a divid- 
ino^ rido-e, in the forks of the Alabama and 

O CD ' 

Tombigbee, not far from the line between 
the Choctaw and Creek territories. I took 
charge of Fort Glass, a small stockade about 
a quarter of a mile from Fort Madison : 
some fifteen families were in it. The mas- 
sacre at Fort Mims had alarmed the whole 
country, and Major General Flournoy, dis- 
approving the stockade system, determined 
to concentrate his troops at Mobile, St. 
Stephen's, and Mount Yernon. Colonel 
Carson was ordered to abandon Fort Madi- 
son. He obeyed the order reluctantly, and 
as his drum beat for his men to march, I 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. H^J 

beat mine for volunteers, being determined 
to remain if I could get ten men to stand 
by me. As the last of the volunteers in the 
service of the United States marched out, I, 
at the head of fifty bold fellows, marched in. 
During the day sentinels were posted around 
the fort. At night I illuminated the ap- 
proaches, for a circuit of one hundred yards, 
by a device of my own. Two poles, fifty 
feet long, were firmly planted on each side 
of the fort ; a long lever, u23on the plan of a 
well-sweep, worked upon each of these poles; 
to each lever was attached a bar of iron 
about ten feet long, and to these bars we 
fastened, with trace-chains, huge fagots of 
lio:ht-wood. The illumination from such an 
elevation was brilliant, and no covert attack 
could be made upon my position. As a 
precaution against the Indian torch, I had 
my block-houses and their roofs well plaster- 
ed with clay. "We displayed ourselves in 
arms frequently, the women wearing hats 
and the garments of their husbands, to im- 
press upon the spies that we knew were 
lurking around an exaggerated notion of 
our strength. For provisions we shot such 



118 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

cattle and hogs as fed within the range of 
our guns, but I carefully noted the marks 
and brands, and afterward indemnified their 
owners. 

Major General Flournoy sent me a very 
kind note, advising me to repair to Mount 
Vernon, as I was certain to be attacked by 
an overwhelming force. I replied that there 
were many women and children under my 
charge, and I had sworn to defend them ; 
that I had a gallant set of boys, and, when 
he heard of the fall of Fort Madison, he 
would find a pile of yellow hides to tan, if 
he could get his regulars to come and skin 
them ! 

About the 1st of November, 1813, Tandy 
Walker and Jack Evans, two of General 
Claiborne's scouts, brought me a note from 
him, requesting me to send two of my best 
woodsmen with them to reconnoitre the 
Wolf-path. I sent Bill Spikes and George 
Foster. Returning, Evans shot an Indian in 
a corn-field. They then camped at Moore's 
Ferry, on the Alabama, Walker and Evans 
lying on the bank, my men in the cane. 
Weatherford (the renowned chief who led 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. HQ 

the assault on Fort Mims) happened to be 
coming up in a canoe. He put a negro fel- 
low ashore to ascertain whether the sleepers 
were white men or negroes. The negro hail- 
ed, and Evans cried out ^''Niggers,'" Weath- 
erford perceived the fraud, and his party 
fired, killing poor Evans, and wounding 
Walker, who, however, with the assistance 
of my men, escaped. 

A day or so after, one of my scouts brought 
news of eighty or a hundred Indians camp- 
ed on the east side of the Alabama, near what 
is now called Dale's Ferry. I took sixty 
men, intending to bury Jack Evans, and, if 
practicable, attack the enemy. Crossing the 
river in two canoes, which I had previously 
concealed, we spent the night in the cane- 
brake. At daylight I manned each canoe 
with five picked men, and directed them to 
move cautiously up the river, while the rest 
of us followed the trail which ran along the 
bank. I considered that the canoes would 
be useful if we had to retreat or cross the 
river, or to carry our wounded. When we 
reached Bailey's, whose cabins were on the 
east, and his corn-crib and field on the west 



120 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

bank, we discovered two Indian canoes, laden 
with corn, paddling up stream. I ordered 
Jerry Austill to lay his canoes under the 
bluff and conceal his men from the Indians 
until I could get ahead of them. Unfortu- 
nately, the path left the river bank on ac- 
count of swamp and cane-brakes, and so con- 
tinued two and a half miles before it again 
approached the river. The Indians had, 
doubtless, perceived my canoes from the first, 
and I now saw them moving rapidly up, 
still far above us. We pushed on at a live- 
ly rate, George Foster and myself being a 
hundred yards in advance of the others. At 
an abrupt turn of the path we suddenly en- 
countered five warriors. The file-leader lev- 
eled his rifle, but, before he could pull trig- 
ger, I shot him down. Foster shot the next, 
and the rest broke into the cane-brake. The 
leader of the party was "Will Milfort — three 
quarters white, tall, handsome, intelligent, 
and prepossessing, and a strong attachment 
existed between us. He camped with me at 
the great council of Took-a-batcha, and pri- 
vately informed me when Tecumseh was 
about to speak. By the influence of Weath- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^21 

erford he joined the hostiles, and was on his 
first war-path when he met his fate. We 
recognized each other in a moment ; there 
was a mutual exclamation of surprise — a 
pang of regret, perhaps — but no time for 
parley. I dropped a tear over his body, and 
often bewail the destiny that doomed him to 
fall by the hand of his best friend. Such 
are the dreadful necessities of war. Some 
time after I sought and interred his fleshless 
bones ; they now moulder on the banks of 
the river he loved so well ; and often since, 
in my solitary bivouac, in the dead of night, 
have I fancied that I heard his wailing voice 
in the tops of the aged pines. Even now 
my heart bleeds for poor Will. 

After this rencounter I put thirty of my 
men on the east bank where the path ran di- 
rectly by the river side. With twenty men 
I kept the western bank, and thus we pro- 
ceeded to Randon's Landing. A dozen fires 
were burning, and numerous scaffolds for 
drying meat, denoting a large body of In- 
dians ; but none were visible. About half 
past ten A.M. we discerned a large canoe 
coming down stream. It contained eleven 

F 



;[22 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

warriors. Observing that they were about 
to land at a cane-brake just above us, I call- 
ed to my men to follow, and dashed for the 
cane-brake with all my might. Only seven 
of my men kept up with me. As the In- 
dians were in the act of landing, we fired. 
Two leaped into the water. Jim Smith shot 
one as he rose, and I shot the other. In the 
mean time they had backed into deep water, 
and three Indians were swimming on the off 
side of the canoe, working her as far from the 
shore as they could, to get out of the range 
of our guns. The others lay in the bottom 
of the canoe, which was thirty odd feet long, 
four feet deep, and three feet beam, made of 
an immense cypress -tree, specially for the 
transportation of corn. One of the warriors 
shouted to "Weatherford (who was in the vi- 
cinity, as it afterward appeared, but invisi- 
ble to us^'-'Yos-ta-hahf yos-ta-!'' ah T "They 
are spoiling us." This fellow was in the 
water, his hands on the gunwale of the pi- 
rogue, and as often as he rose to shout we 
fired, but ineffectually. He suddenly show- 
ed himself breast-high, whooping in derision, 
and said, "Why dont you shoot f I drew 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 123 

my sight just between his hands, and as he 
rose I lodged a bullet in his brains. Their 
canoe then floated down with the current. 
I ordered my men on the east bank to fetch 
the boats. Six of them jumped into a ca- 
noe, and paddled to the Indians, when one 
of them cried out, '' Live Indians, by G — d ! 
Back water, boys ! back water ! " and the 
frightened fellows paddled back whence they 
came. I next ordered CaBsar, a free negro 
fellow, to bring a boat. Seeing him hesi- 
tate, I swore I would shoot him the moment 
I got across. He crossed a hundred yards 
below the Indians, and Jim Smith, Jerry 
Austin, and myself got in. I made Ca3sar 
paddle within forty paces, when all three of 
us leveled our guns, and all missed fire ! As 
the two boats approached, 'one of them hurl- 
ed his scalping-knife at me. It pierced the 
boat through and through, just grazing my 
thigh as it passed. The next moment the 
canoes came in contact. I leaped up, plac- 
ing one of my feet in each boat. At the 
same instant the foremost warrior leveled his 
rifle at my breast. It flashed in the pan. As 
quick as lightning, he clubbed it, and aimed 



124 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

at me a furious blow, which I partially par- 
ried, and, before he could repeat it, I shiver- 
ed his skull with my gun. In the mean 
time an Indian had struck down Jerry, and 
was about to dispatch him, when I broke my 
rifle over his head. It parted in two places. 
The barrel Jerry seized, and renewed the 
fight. The stock I hurled at one of the sav- 
ages. Being then disarmed, Csesar handed 
me his musket and bayonet.* 

Finding myself unable to keep the two 
canoes in juxtaposition, I resolved to bring 
matters to an issue, and leaped into the 
Indian boat. My pirogue, with Jerry, Jim, 
and Caesar, floated ofi". Jim fired, and slight- 
ly wounded the Indian next to me. I now 
stood in the centre of their canoe — two dead 
at my feet — a wounded savage in the stern, 
who had been snapping his piece at me dur- 
ing the fight, and four powerful warriors in 
front. The first one directed a furious blow 
at me with his rifle ; it glanced upon the 
barrel of my musket, and I staved the bay- 
onet through his body. As he fell the next 
one repeated the attack. A shot from Jerry 

* See Frontispiece. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 125 

Austin pierced his heart. Striding over 
them, the next sprung at me with his toma- 
hawk. I killed him with the bayonet, and 
his corpse lay between me and the last of 
the party. I knew him well — Tar-cha-chee, 
a noted wrestler, and the most famous ball- 
player of his clan. He paused a moment 
in expectation of my attack, but, finding me 
motionless, he stepped backward to the bow 
of the canoe, shook himself, gave the war- 
whoop of his tribe, and cried out, "Sam 
tholocco lana dahmasJca^ ia-lanestha — lipso 
— lipso — lanestha. * Big Sam ! lam a man — 
I am coming — come on /" As he said this, 
with a terrific yell he bounded over the 
dead body of his comrade, and directed a 
blow at my head with his rifle, which dis- 
located my left shoulder. I dashed the bay- 
onet into him. It glanced around his ribs, 
and the point hitching to his back-bone, I 
pressed him down. As I pulled the weapon 
out, he put his hands upon the sides of the 
canoe and endeavored to rise, crying out, 
" Tar-cha-chee is- a man. He is not afraid 

* I can not vouch that this is good Muscogee. I spell it as 
General Dale pronounced it. 



126 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to dieT I drove my bayonet through his 
heart, I then turned to the wounded villam 
in the stern, who snapped his rifle at me as 
I advanced, and had been snapping during 
the whole conflict. He gave the war-whoop, 
and, in tones of hatred and defiance, exclaim- 
ed, "/ am a ivarrior — / am not afraid to 
die.'' As he uttered the words I pinned him 
down with my bayonet, and he followed his 
eleven comrades to the land of spirits. 

During this conflict, which was over in 
ten minutes, my brave companions. Smith 
and Austin, had been struggling with the cur- 
rent of the Alabama, endeavoring to reach 
me. Their guns had become useless, and 
their only paddle had been broken. Two 
braver fellows never lived. AustilFs first 
shot saved my life.'^ -^^^^ ' 

* Jeny Aiistill is still living, a highly-esteemed commission 
merchant of Mobile, and lately a senator from that district. All 
the circumstances of this remarkable fight, as here detailed, were 
verified before the Alabama Legislature. 

" State of Alabama, Executive Department, December 18, 1821. 
"Jeremiah Austill, Esq.: Sir, — I have much pleasure in 
transmitting, as the organ of the Legislature of this state, a copy 
of their resolution, approved this day, giving you their thanks for 
your heroic exertions during the late Creek war, in company with 
Brevet Brigadier General Dale, in the canoe action on the Ala- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^^27 

By this time my men came running down 
the bank, shouting that Weatherford was 
coming. With our three canoes we crossed 
them all over and got safely back to the 
fort. 

Thi^ fight occurred November 13, 1813, 
at Bandon's Landing, Monroe County, ten 
miles below Weatherford's Bluif, where Fort 
Claiborne was afterw^ard built, and the town 
of that name now stands. 

After the war was over I asked Weather- 
ford why he did not come to the assistance 
of his warriors during our fight. He said 
that he had no boats, and we were beyond 
the range of his guns ; that he supposed I 
had a hundred men below prepared for bat- 
tle ; that he had but thirty warriors ; that 
he had made a circuit of three miles, and 
ambushed his force in a cane-brake, intend- 
ing to attack us as we marched down the 
river, which I had defeated by crossing my 
men immediately over from Randon's. 

This renowned leader was born at the 

bama River. I hope you may continue long to deserve and enjoy 
your country's gi-atitude, the highest reward of valor. 

"Your obedient servant, Jno. M. Pickens." 



128 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Hickory Ground in the Creek nation; his 
father, Charles Weatherford, was a Georgian, 
who established a trading-house and race- 
track on the first blulF below the junction 
of the Coosa and Tallapoosa in 1792. His 
mother, the beautiful Sehoya, was half-sis- 
ter of the famous Creek chieftain General 
M'Gilivray, a man of remarkable attributes, 
of a diplomatic turn, and alternately (and, as 
some say, at the same time) a Spanish pen- 
sioner, a British colonel, and a brigadier un- 
der George Washington. William Weather- 
ford had not the education of his grandfather, 
but nature had endowed him with a noble 
person, a brilliant intellect, and a command- 
ing eloquence. He was, in every respect, the 
peer of Tecumseh, who, though a Shawnee 
on his father's side, was born on the Talla- 
poosa, in the Creek nation ; his mother was 
a Creek. Through the influence of Tecum- 
seh he joined the war party, and led the at- 
tack on Fort Mims. He often deplored to 
me his inability to arrest the carnage on 
that occasion; "but my warriors,'' said he, 
"were like famished wolves, and the first 
taste of blood made their appetites insatia- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. X29 

ble." He fought like a hero, and with great 
military tact, until his towns were burned, 
his country ravaged, and his warriors slain ; 
when, moved by starving women and chil- 
dren all around him, he surrendered to Gen- 
eral Jackson. His speech on that occasion 
has become history. Some time after peace 
was restored he moved into the white settle- 
ments near Montgomery, where he married, 
and I was his groomsman. He said that 
his old comrades, the hostiles, ate his cattle 
from starvation ; the peace party ate them 
from revenge ; and the squatters because he 
was a d — d Ked-skin. " So, '' said he, "I have 
come to live among gentlemen." He died, 
I think, in 1830, in his thirty-sixth year, of 
a brief but violent attack of pneumonia. 

r2 



130 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Council of War. — Dale's Appearance. — His Opinion. — General 
Claiborne's Decision. — Major Tom Hinds. — His Character and 
Appearance. — Pushamataha. — Anecdotes. — Extract from the 
New Orleans Delta. — Weatherford's Bluff. — Fort Claiborne. — 
March to the Holy Ground. — The Volunteers. — General Clai- 
borne's Dispatch. — The Battle. — Weatherford's Leap. — Christ- 
mas Dinner. — Effects of this Victory. 

Shortly after this, by invitation of Gen- 
eral Claiborne, I attended a council of offi- 
cers at Point Jackson, on the Tombigbee, to 
deliberate on the expediency and means of 
building a fort at Weatherford's Bluff, where 
corn and cattle were abundant, and from 
whence the war party procured their sup- 
plies. The prevalent opinion was that the 
contemplated post was too near the seat of 
war for a force so weak and inadequate. I 
was at length called on for my opinion. I 
was a stranger to most of the council, and 
my appearance did not recommend me. I 
was smoke-tanned, and gaunt from fatigue 
and protracted anxiety ; I wore a hunting- 




/ 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE ^Sl 

shirt of a rusty brown color, homespun 
pants, moccasins and leggins of dressed biick- 
skin, and a bearskin cap ; a belt of panther- 
skin, with my pouch and hunting-knife, and 
a long rifle — good for a hundred yards — 
completed my equipment. There was a 
sensation — not a sneer, but a surprise — 
when I rose. I calmly surveyed the com- 
pany, and said, 

" General, there's so many shining buttons 
here to dazzle a fellow's eyes, I do not know 
whether the opinion of a frontier man will 
be listened to. But I have one favor to ask 
of you." 

"Name it," said the general. "What 
can I do for you ?" 

"Sir, have the women and children now 
in my charge at Fort Madison brought here, 
and 111 be d — d if / don't build the fort, and 
keep it after it is built." 

General Claiborne took two or three 
turns, and suddenly said, "Captain Dale, 
let's take a glass of grog. " 

After we had drunk, he said, 

"Gentlemen, the point is decided. We 
must build the fort ; at all hazards it must 



132 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

be built. General Jackson is advancing, 
and supplies must be secured for liim.'" 

He then said, "Captain Dale, tliere's a 
duty to perform — a difficult and dangerous 
one. May I ask you to undertake it V 

" General, I will do what you wish, or die 
for it ; and every fellow I have will do the 
same for you." 

"Thank you, Captain Dale — a thousand 
thanks. You have a noble set of boys. 
Proceed up the river in canoes, reconnoitre 
both banks, and secure the march of my 
troops. General Pushamataha, with his 
warriors, will accompany you on the scout.*" 

Pushamataha, the great chief of the Choc- 
taws, then came forward, and the general 
invited the whole company to dinner. He 
introduced me particularly to Major Thomas 
Hinds, of the Mississippi Dragoons, and said, 
"Tom, if you get into difficulties on this 
frontier, call on Dale. Dale, if you are hard 
pressed, and want a man who will fight the 
devil himself, send for Hinds."" The major 
was a small, square-built, swarthy-complex- 
ioned, black -eyed man, moving rapidly, 
speaking imperatively, beloved by his troops, 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^33 

and one of the most intrepid men that ever 
lived. 

Pushamataha on this occasion appeared 
with great pomp. General Claiborne had 
presented him with a splendid suit of regi- 
mentals, gold epaulettes, sword, silver spurs, 
and hat and feather, ordered from Mobile at 
a cost of three hundred dollars. He was a 
man of imposing mien, perfectly self-possess- 
ed, entirely at home in the general's tent, 
fearless as a lion in the hour of danger ; in 
single combat he had no superior, and he 
ruled the Choctaws by the thunder of his 
eloquence.* 

* The following account of Pushamataha and of incidents in 
the Mississippi Territory during the war appeared in the New Or- 
leans Delta, August 19, 1849 : 

" Turning to the northeast from Williamsburg, I was soon in a 
country formerly the favorite hunting-grounds of the Choctaws, a 
powerful tribe, always friendly to the Pale-faces. They were close- 
ly allied with the French, and in the memorable battle at White 
Apple Village (twelve miles below the city of Natchez), so fatal to 
the tribe of that name, they fought under the flag of the silver 
lilies. During the war of 1812, when most of the effective men 
of the Mississippi Territory had been concentrated on the Alaba- 
ma to defend that frontier, the fidelity of the Choctaws was for a 
brief period suspected. Tecumseh and Weatherford had passed 
through their towns, and Spanish emissaries from Pensacola sought 
to influence them. The scent of blood, so seductive to the savage, 
was on every breeze that swept from the southeast, where the 



134 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

On the 13tli of November, General Clai- 
borne and liis command marched for Weath- 

Creek Indians were desolating the settlements with fire and toma- 
hawk. At that time the Choctaws occupied the entu'e country 
east and north of Claiborne County to the Tombigbee Kiver, and 
running as far south as the old counties of Wayne and Hancock. 
Had they seized the opportunity, Natchez, with the surrounding 
country, must have fallen. General apprehension prevailed, and 
to such an extent in the county of Claiborne, which lay along the 
line, that many families abandoned their homes and took refuge 
in the swamps. On the 18th of September, 1813, such was the 
anxiety of the public mind, a meeting was called at Port Gibson, 
Colonel Daniel C. Burnet in the chair, and it was determined to 
erect three stockades. The following committees were appointed, 
composed of well-known citizens, only two of whom now sunive :* 

'''■Frontier Co7nmittee. — Major Clarke, Captain Johnson, Captain 
P. Briscoe, D. M 'Caleb, John Boothe, Gibson Clarke, Moses 
Shelby. 

'■^Committee of Safety. — Thomas Barnes, William Tabor, Sam- 
uel Gibson, William Briscoe, Harman Bknnerhasset, Colonel L. 
Eagan, James Watson, Thomas Farrar, Judge Leake, Kobert 
Cochran, J. H. Moore. 

"Finding it difiicult, after the fall of Fort Mims, to restrain the 
Choctaws, the late General F. L. Claiborne, then at Fort Stod- 
dart, on the Alabama, in command of the Mississippi and Lou- 
isiana Volunteers, dispatched Major Ballenger into the nation, and, 
through the influence of George S. Gaines, Esq., of Mobile (then 
a young man in charge of the Choctaw factory), induced Pusha- 
mataha, the most celebrated war-chief of the Choctaws, to visit 
his camp. When the chief approached the general's tent, he was 
received by the lieutenant on guard, who invited him to drink. 

a "Captain (now General) Briscoe and William Briscoe, both distinguished 
citizens of Claiborne County. Blennerhasset, the same who was associated 
with Aaron Burr, was then residing near Port Gibson, on a plantation now the 
residence of Samuel Cobun, Esq." 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE . I35 

erford's Bluflf, and erected a stockade two 
hundred feet square, protected by three 

Pusliamataha answered only by a look of scorn. He recognized 
no officer with one epaulette. When the general came in, the red 
warrior shook him by the hand, and said, proudly, as to an equal, 
' Chief, I will drink with you.'' Pusliamataha was the most re- 
markable man that the tribe ever produced since the time of Chac- 
tas, their great Mingo. He was six feet two inches high, robust, 
and of Herculean strength. His form and features were after the 
finest models of the antique ; his deportment composed, dignified, 
and seductive. He was sometimes called the ' Panther's Claw* 
and the 'Waterfall,' in allusion to his exploits in battle and to 
the sonorous and musical intonations of his voice. The late Gen- 
eral Samuel Dale informed me that he had heard Tecumseh, 
Weatherford, the Prophet, the Big Warrior, and Puxenubbee, be- 
sides all our distinguished orators in Congress, but never one who 
had such music in his tones, such energy in his manner, and such 
power over his audience as this renowned warrior. Pusliamata- 
ha acknowledged no paternity. 'Where are your parents?' he 
was once asked. ''I have no father and no mother,'' was the proud 
reply. '•The lightning struck an oak-tree, and Pushamatdha sprung 
out of it jnst as he stands.'' Another characteristic anecdote is 
related of him. A feud existed between him and a Mingo of the 
Yazoo district, and it was understood that their knives would de- 
cide it when they met. At the head of a numerous party his rival 
was seen approaching, evidently agitated, and irresolutely grasp- 
ing a tomahawk. Pushamataha leaped forward like a tiger, his 
knife gleaming above his head, but suddenly paused, and, with a 
scornful smile, exclaimed, ^Leafofthe Yazoo f why dost thou trem- 
ble ? The ivind don't hloiv. Go, squaw ! go V 

"This distinguished warrior died at Washington City, where 
he headed a deputation from his nation to transact some business 
with the government. He was calm, and conscious of his impend- 
ing fate. A short time before he expired. General Jackson, then 
a senator from Tennessee, repaired to his room. He was in the 



l^Q LIFE AND TIMES OF 

block-houses and a half-moon battery which 
commanded the river. It was chiefly for 
the security of magazines intended for Gen- 
eral Jackson, and of a large quantity of 
stores already ordered there by Major Gen- 
eral Flournoy. Without this seasonable 
movement, strongly urged by General Jack- 
son, the Tennessee troops could not have 
kept the field. General Claiborne advised 
General Jackson of the stores in waiting for 
him, acquainted him with the outrages com- 
mitted by British emissaries and the Spanish 
authorities in Pensacola, and added that 
"he wished to God he was authorized by 
General Flournoy to take that sink of 
iniquity, the depot of Tories and instigators 

last agony, and his comrades, in low tones, were chanting the 
death-dirge in his ear. ' Warrior, ' said the general, ' what is your 
ivish f ' When I am dead, fire the big guns over me,' were the last 
words of the dying chief. General Jackson complied with his 
request. The remains of Pushamataha were committed to the 
earth in the Congress buiying-ground amid the roar of artillery 
and the music of muffled drams, and his last words were engraved 
upon his tomb. Thus closed the career of one who, in civilized life, 
would have adorned the senate, and been regarded by posterity 
as we now regard the heroes of antiquity ; a man of the noblest 
attributes, who had it in his power to depopulate our territories, 
but whose arm was always extended for the protection of the 
whites. J. F. H. Claiborne." 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 



137 



of disturbances on the southern frontier."* 
On the 26th5 Colonel Russell, with the 3d 
regiment U. S. infantry, came up, and the 
general resolved upon an expedition to Ec- 
canachaca, or Holy Ground, east of Ala- 
bama, in the heart of the enemy, one hund- 
red and twenty miles from the new stockade. 
It was the strong-hold of the Indians, in a 
position of great strength, had been partial- 
ly fortified by Weatherford, and consecrated 
by the Shawnee prophets, who assured their 
followers that if the white men dared to 
tread upon it the earth would open and 
swallow them up ! Indian fugitives in great 
numbers, from all parts of the nation, when 
pressed by the whites, had concentrated 
there. It stood upon a lofty bluff, just be- 
low what is now Powell's Ferry, in the 
county of Lowndes. Prisoners, both whites 
and friendly Indians, were taken to this holy 
ground, by order of the prophets, and burn- 
ed in the great square. The fanatics and 
prophets of the tribe made it the scene of 
their sorceries and incantations. 

* Pickett's History of Alabama, vol, ii., p. 320 ; Monette's Val- 
ley of the Mississippi ; Waldo's Life of Jackson. 



138 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The enterprise was deemed so hazardous 
the officers presented a memorial to the gen- 
eral against it, signed by nine captains, eight 
lieutenants, and five ensigns of the Missis- 
sipj)i Volunteers, urging the feeble condition 
of their men, without provisions, clothing, 
blankets, or shoes, the inclemency of the 
weather, and the want of transportation. 
They represented truly that there was not 
even a path leading to Eccanachaca, but de- 
clared their willingness to follow him if he 
should resolve to proceed. 

"Their objections,'' says General Clai- 
borne, in a dispatch published in the "Mis- 
sissippi Republican'' soon after, "were stated 
in the memorial with the dignity, feeling, 
and respect eminently conspicuous among 
the officers of that corps pending the opera- 
tions on the frontier. But those abused, 
calumniated defenders of their country, in a 
situation to try the stoutest hearts, rose su- 
perior to misfortune and want. So soon as 
the order for march had been issued, each 
man repaired with promptitude to his post; 
and even many whose term of service had 
expired, and who had not received a dollar 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^39 

of their arrearages, again volunteered, and 
with cheerful alacrity moved to their sta- 
tions in the line." "Yes,'' continues Gen- 
eral Claiborne, in the same dispatch, "when 
they were exposed, without tents or blankets, 
to an inclement winter ; when every visage 
strongly portrayed the utmost extent of 
human suffering ; when the pale, emaciated 
victim smiled at the approach of death, did 
those determined soldiers meet with forti- 
tude the exigencies of the service. Their 
patience was equal to their courage. Not 
a murmur was heard '; not a complaint was 
made. Subordination to their officers mark- 
ed their every act, and no suffering could 
seduce them from their duty."" 

I was a witness, said General Dale (when 
the above dispatch was read to him in 1840), 
to these facts. Most of those volunteers 
were young men, accustomed to the com- 
forts, many of them to the luxuries of life.* 
Officers and men were averse to the expedi- 
tion for the strong reasons stated, but when 
their general reminded them of the taunts 

* Gerard C. Brandon, and Abram N. Scott, both afterward 
governors of the state, were among them. 



140 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

of tlieir traducers on the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi, with one voice they swore they 
would follow him or die in the wilderness. 
The general shed tears at these demonstra- 
tions of patriotism. He grasped us all by 
the hand, and we marched out of Fort Clai- 
borne to the tune of "Over the hills and 
far away." Eighty miles on our march, at 
Double Swamp, in the present county of 
Butler, we built a_ stockade for the sick and 
the baggage, and left a guard of one hundred 
men. An advance of thirty miles brought 
us near our point of destination. More than 
two thirds of our march had been through a 
pathless forest. The Holy City had been 
purposely located, as a place of refuge, in a 
position of difficult access, and no trail led 
to it. It was the 29th of December, 1813 ; 
the weather was very wet and bitter cold ; 
we had neither meat, coffee, nor spirits. In 
three columns we made the attack — drove 
out the Indians, killing many of them, and 
Weatherford with difficulty escaped on a 
powerful charger, making his famous leap 
of twenty feet over a deep ravine, and down 
the bluff into the Alabama, which his gal- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I4.I 

lant courser swam, the chief holding his rifle 
above his head, and shouting his war-whoop 
as soon as he ascended the bank. The Choc- 
taws plundered the town, and then set fire 
to it. Next day we killed several Indians, 
and among them three Shawnee prophets, 
who had been left by Tecumseh to inflame 
the Creeks. I had noted them at Took-a- 
batcha, and recognized them immediately. 
On Christmas eve we lay shivering in our 
old blankets in Weatherford's corn-field, and 
General Claiborne, his officers and men, dined 
next day on boiled acorns and parched corn. 
The little flour and spirits on hand he order- 
ed to be distributed among the sick. We 
were five days on the return march, and 
parched corn constituted our only food, the 
contractor having wholly failed to comply 
with the timely requisition made for sup- 
plies. 

The moral efl'ect of this bold movement 
into the heart of the nation, upon ground 
held sacred and impregnable, was great. It 
taught the savages that they were neither in- 
accessible nor invulnerable ; it destroyed their 
confidence in their prophets, and it proved 



3^42 I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

what volunteers, even without shoes, cloth- 
ing, blankets, or provisions would do for 
their country. 

Soon after this the MississijDpi Volunteers 
disbanded, having served out their time, and 
beyond their time. Only sixty remained at 
Mount Vernon, who had a month longer to 
serve, and the general bitterly complained 
that his brave men had been permitted to 
return home without shoes, and with eight 
months' pay due them. 

Such were the difficulties encountered in 
that campaign ; these the privations endured 
by patriots in the public service. I was an 
eye-witness of what I relate. Most of those 
gallant fellows have gone to their long 
homes, and are now deaf alike to praise and 
censure ; but, in reciting the incidents of my 
own life, it cheers my heart to render this 
homage to their memory. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^^g 



CHAPTER IX. 

Old Town Expedition. — Death of Lieutenant Wilcox. — Distress 
of the Troops. — Rats and Mice. — Horse-meat. — Corn-growing 
on the Alabama. — General Jackson. — A speedy Settlement. — 
Rides express. — A rapid Journey. — Arrives at New Orleans. — 
Battle of the 8th of Januaiy. — Grandeur of the Scene. — Inter- 
view with General Jackson. — "By the Eternal." — Returns to 
Georgia. — Colonel Sparks. — General Winchester. — General 
M 'Intosh. — Milledgeville. 

On the 1st of February, 1814, with my 
command, consisting of a company command- 
ed by Captain Evan Austill and Lieutenant 
Creagh, and Captain Foster's company of 
horse, I joined Colonel Hussell and the 3d 
U. S. regiment in an expedition to the "Old 
Towns" on Cahawba Hiver. Captain Din- 
kins, with a keel-boat of provisions, was dis- 
patched up the river, while the detachment 
proceeded by land. The Indians got notice 
of our approach, and we found the towns 
deserted. The barge had not arrived, and 
we were suffering for supplies. Lieutenant 
Wilcox, of the regulars, and three men, vol- 
unteered to go in search of her. They set 



144 ^IFE AND TIMES OF 

out in a small pirogue, and capsized near the 
mouth of the Cahawba, wetting most of their 
ammunition ; they righted her, however, and 
proceeded. Next day they had a brush with 
twelve Indians in a boat ; but, their powder 
being damp, they were compelled to retreat. 
Wilson, one of my men, got into the cane- 
brake and came near starving, but finally 
joined the detachment. Wilcox, Simpson, 
and Armar crossed the river on a raft, to 
make their way to Fort Claiborne ; but, after 
wandering all day in the cane-brakes, they 
got back to the very point they had started 
from. To descend the river on the raft was 
now their only chance. At that moment a 
boat with eight Indians hove in sight. Wil- 
cox and his comrades got into the cane. 
When the Indians saw the raft they landed, 
and advanced into the cane to the very spot 
where Wilcox and his two men stood. The 
nearest one was struck down by Wilcox 
with a paddle — he split his skull open with 
the blade. Simpson was then shot, and 
Wilcox was seized and overpowered. Ar- 
mar got off into the cane and witnessed all 
that occurred. The savages dragged their 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 3^4.5 

prisoners into the canoe and pinioned them 
down. At this moment the barge appeared 
close at hand. The Indians hastily toma- 
hawked and scalped their captives, and took 
to the woods. The poor lieutenant and 
Simpson were found speechless, and soon 
expired ; Armar left his hiding-place and got 
upon the barge. 

Next day a party of our men were fired 
on and one man killed. Colonel Russell 
was in a tight place, and roundly d — d his 
luck. He could find no Indians, had lost 
his barge, and on our return march we lived 
on acorns and hickory nuts, rats and mice. 
To catch these, the soldiers would set fire to 
the Indian cabins, and catch the rats as they 
came out. I saw a soldier ofi*er two dollars 
for a rat, and the offer was rejected ; the 
owner demanded ten dollars. We camped 
the first night near the present town of 
Greensborough. I bought a horse of one 
of the detachment for one hundred dollars. 
Colonel Russell bought one, and the troops 
subsisted on horseflesh until we arrived at 
Fort Claiborne. 

Exposure on this unfortunate expedition 

a 



l^Q LIFE AND TIMES OF 

affected my old wound, and brought on in- 
flammation. Dr. Neal Smith, a surgeon at 
Fort Claiborne, skillfully extracted the ball, 
which had been in my body and deranging 
my health ever since the battle ot Burnt 
Corn, the beginning of the war. My brave 
fellows now took leave of me, every man de- 
claring they would rally again whenever I 
gave the word. 

In March, 1814, Peter Bandon — a very 
clever fellow, who had escaped from Fort 
Mims, where his father perished — proposed 
to me to take possession of his farm on the 
Alabama River, ten miles below Claiborne, 
as he was apprehensive that in his absence 
some one might get hold of it whom it might 
be troublesome to oust. Nine men accom- 
panied me. We planted corn : each got his 
share ; mine was a thousand bushels, which 
subsequently was consumed by the famished 
Tennessee troops on their route to Mobile. 

About this time a friendly Indian report- 
ed that George Foster, Abram Millstead, 
and a negro, while hunting horses, had been 
killed. I took my men and went in pursuit. 
The Indians had fled, after chopping ofl^ 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 14.^ 

the heads and disemboweling their victims. 
We consigned their mutilated members to 
the earth. 

During the summer, Colonel Milton, then 
commanding at Fort Claiborne, ordered 
Major Carson and myself to Pensacola, to 
induce the Creeks, who had gone there for 
protection, to sue for pardon and return to 
the nation, where a treaty of peace with the 
United States had been ratified. They 
agreed to my proposal, but the same day 
news came that Arbuthnot and Ambrister 
(British agents, afterward hung by General 
Jackson) had arrived in Appalachicola Bay 
with provisions and military stores, and 
most of the refugee Creeks joined the Sem* 
inoles shortly after, and remained hostile. 
The notorious Peter M 'Queen was of this 
party ; he not long after died in the Oko- 
fonoko swamp. 

In September I rode express to Fort 
Hawkins, Georgia, by order of Colonel 
Russell, one hundred and fifty miles in 
three days, the route being directly through 
the Creek nation. I saw not a human be- 
ing, and got back safely to Fort Claiborne- 



148 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Learning tliat General Jackson was about 
to attack the Spanish post, the Barancas, 
near Pensacola, I collected twenty men and 
set out to serve under him. I encountered 
him returning, the Spaniards having hauled 
down their flag. On arriving at Fort Mont- 
gomery, the resignation of Major General 
Flournoy, and his own appointment to the 
command of the seventh military district, 
was communicated to the general. Having 
a claim which the U. S. Quartermaster re- 
fused to settle or examine, I complained to 
General Jackson. He said nothing, but 
went to his table and brought me a slip of 
paper. I was about to say something, when 
he exclaimed, "Not a word, major. Pre- 
sent that note." He had written only three 
words: '•'•Settle with Dale.'''' In half an hour 
the money was in my pocket. 

Toward the close of December, 1814, 1 was 
at the Creek Agency in Georgia on business. 
Late at night an express arrived for Gener- 
al Jackson from the Secretary of War. The 
general was supposed to be in or near New 
Orleans, preparing for its defense against the 
rumored British invasion. Colonel Haw- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I49 

kins, the Creek Agent, and General M'Intosh, 
in command of the Georgia troops, then in 
that vicinity, urged me to take charge of the 
dispatches. An inhospitable wilderness and 
a perfidious and revengeful people lay on the 
route, but I accepted the trust. Mounted on 
a compactly-built horse, noted for his wind 
and muscle, which I purchased at the Agen- 
cy for the trip, I set out the same night, tak- 
ing with me only a blanket, my flint and 
steel, my pistols, and a wallet of Indian flour 
for myself and horse. In seven days and a 
half I reached Madisonville, on the Tche- 
foncta River, and forthwith engaged a fish- 
ing-smack to carry me across Lake Pont- 
chartrain. Landing at Fort St. John, I 
found Quarter-master-general Piatt, who put 
me on a fine horse, and directed me to head- 
quarters, under charge of an orderly. At 
head-quarters, on Poyal Street, I learned that 
the general was below, with the army, in 
front of the British, on the plains of Chal- 
mette. Galloping through the city, down 
the river side, I heard the roar of artillery. 
The battle was in full blast. I gave my 
horse to the orderly, and rushed to the in- 



150 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

trenchments. It was a magnilicent vision. 
On each side our men stood silent and reso- 
lute. The enemy were advancing in col- 
umns, with loud cheers. Their martial ap- 
proach to the American lines — the fearful 
recoil, as whole detachments were swept 
away by the discharge from our works and 
the broadsides of the Carolina, then anchor- 
ed on our right — the heroism of their offi- 
cers, who rushed to the front, waving their 
swords, and rallied their men into the very 
jaws of death, and, cheering, died — was a 
spectacle so sublime, that it silenced for a 
moment the clamor of the battle-field, and 
inspired every one with awe and admiration. 
There was a simultaneous ]Dause in our 
ranks ; for several minutes a dreadful still- 
ness prevailed ; not a gun was discharged ; 
not a shout was heard ; and then there burst 
forth, along our whole line, a blaze of fire, 
a crash of small arms, a deafening roar of 
artillery, and, when the dun smoke rolled 
away, the field was covered with dead and 
wounded, and the British columns w^ere in 
full retreat — not flying ingloriously, but 
staggering back, like men reeling under un- 
expected and overpowering blows. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 15I 

The terrible grandeur of tlie scene impress- 
ed the veteran soldiers of Napoleon, a num- 
ber of whom were in the American ranks ; 
and you may imagine its effect upon me, 
trained from boyhood to the ambuscades 
of the wilderness, and to the hand-to-hand 
rencounters of the frontier, where a reek- 
ing scalp is often the only evidence of the 
fight. 

It was after midnight before I could de- 
liver my dispatches to General Jackson. 
Without speaking, he tore them open, and 
exclaimed, "Too late; too late; they are 
always too late at Washington." 

I then congratulated him on his victory. 
He rose, and shook me by the hand, and an- 
swered, modestly, " Major, if those fellows 
on the other bank had done their duty, it 
would have been a glorious day." 

Major Chotard, one of his aids, a gallant 
officer, who distinguished himself in the bat- 
tle at the Holy Ground, then, at my request, 
observed that, as there was little fighting 
now to be done in the Creek nation, it was 
my wish to remain with the army until the 
British were driven out of the country. 



^1^52 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The general asked '' if I was broken down 
by my rapid ride.'"* 

"No, sir; but I desire to be near you." 

Holding up tlie dispatches, and my cre- 
dentials from Colonel Hawkins, he turned 
to his officers and said, " This express has 
been brought from Georgia in eight days. 
From Mobile our expresses are often four- 
teen days on the route. Chotard, don't 
speak to me of stopping Dale. No, sir. 
You must return to the Agency and to Mil- 
ledgeville as fast as you have come. In one 
hour Major Reid will deliver you your pa- 
pers. " 

He then inquired as to M'Intosh's and 
Nixon's commands,"^ the disposition of the 
Indians, etc. While answering these ques- 
tions, I was frequently interrupted by the ex- 

* Colonel (afterward General) Nixon, one of the most active 
officers in the service. He protected the frontier very efficiently 
during the desidtory war to which it was exposed, and was after- 
ward stationed near the Bay of St. Louis to observe the enemy, 
then off Ship Island. General Jackson and General Claiborne 
reposed the utmost confidence in him. In private life he was a 
most estimable and useful citizen. He died some eight years 
after the war, in Pearlington, Hancock County, Mississippi. At 
a very critical period, his influence among the Choctaws contrib- 
uted greatly to keep them in check. 







DALK'8 .IKTEEVIEW WITH JACKSON. 



/ 



/ ^ /^ 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. X55 

press from Mobile, whom I had overhauled 
at Fort St. John. Being thus annoyed 
several times, the general cried out, ^'D — n 
you, sir, be silent till I ask you a ques- 
tion." 

When he finished his inquiries, he faced 
the other, and said, ''Now, sir, what do you 
know?" 

"Nothing more, sir ; Major Dale has told 
you all." 

"Yes, d — n you," said the general, "I 
thoLTght so. You are too slow a traveler 
to bring news. Chotard, write an order to 
Piatt to mount Major Dale on the best horse 
to be had." 

"And what," said I, "is to be done with 
Paddy?" 

"Who the h-U is Paddy, sir?" 

"The pony, general, that I brought from 
Georgia. " 

"You don't mean to say, sir, that you rode 
one horse all the way from Georgia in seven 
and a half days ?" 

"I mean nothing less, general." 

"Then, by G-d, sir, he won't be able to 
go back." 



^56 ^IFE AND TIMES OF 

''He is like myself, general, very tough.'" 

''Well," said he, "I know you don't talk 
with a forked tongue. Now tell me, how far 
can you ride that horse in a day?" 

"Seventy or eighty miles, from daybreak 
to midnight, with light weights." 

" Light weights ! " 

"Yes, sir — an empty belly and no saddle- 
bags." 

"Very well, major, that will do. Cho- 
tard, give Major Dale my authority, should 
his horse fag, to ask any man he meets to 
light, and, if he refuses, to knock him off 
and seize his horse. And, by G-d, major, 
I know you will do it." 

I set off at daylight, and, after crossing 
the lake, I met an officer, who, as he ap- 
proached, demanded where I was from. 

' ' Head-quarters. " 

"Well, you must stop and tell me the 
news." 

" I can't stop ; if you want news you must 
travel my way." 

"Sir, you don't know me. I'm Colonel 
Sparks, of the United States Army. You 
must stop." 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I57 

"And I, sir, am Major Samuel Dale, and 
when I'm under orders I stop for no man." 

The colonel bit his lip, but wheeled and 
rode with me several miles. When parting, 
I asked him whether I was right or wrong 
in refusing to halt. 

"Right, major, and I ask your pardon." 

When Colonel Sparks related this incident 
to Old Hickory at the dinner-table, the gen- 
eral said, "There isn't a man this side of 
h-11 can stop Big Sam, and, by G-d, Sparks, 
if you had stopped him I would have had 
you shot." 

In former times it was fashionable, even 
among high-bred gentlemen, to swear. It 
was peculiarly the vice of the camp. Gen- 
eral Jackson discarded the vulgar and abom- 
inable habit long before he professed religion. 
True, he would, to his latest day, when under 
the excitement of strong emotions, say ''''By 
the Eternal.''' But in the sense in which he 
used those words, not in bursts of passion, 
but of patriotism, they partook more of 
prayer than of profanity, and may be classed 
with Mr. Erskine's expression in his cele- 
brated speech on the trial of Lord George 



^58 ^If'E AND TIMES OF 

Gordon, ''/ say, by God, that man is a ruf- 
fian who shall, after this, presume to build 
upon such honest, artless conduct as evi- 
dence of guilt." — Lord Erskme^s Speeches^ 
vol. i., p. 12. 

The sensation produced in that high tri- 
bunal by these words, and by the voice, the 
face, the figure — by all we call the manner 
— ^^vith Avhich they were pronounced by the 
great advocate, is related to have been elec- 
trical; but not more, I fancy, than when 
Jackson concentrated the fires of his clear 
gray eye, and exclaimed '''By the EternaV 

This was his exclamation when his men 
mutinied, and it awed them back into the 
ranks to atone by a harvest of glory for a 
momentary defection. 

This was his exclamation when he left 
his quarters on Royal Street on the 23d of 
December, 1814, to attack the British in- 
vaders at the first moment of their approach. 
" By the Eternal, they shall not sleep on our 
soil."* 

* See the narrative of the Honorable Alexander Walker, the 
most eloquent and graphic account ever written of the battle of 
New Orleans and its incidents : 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^59 

This was his exclamation when he resolved 
to remove the public deposits from a power- 
ful corporation that sought to control the 

Extract of a letter from the late Major General E. P. Gaines, 
U. S. A., to Colonel J. F. H. Claiborne, dated New Orleans, 
December 23c?, 1845. 

"I had the satisfaction, in the evening of the 4th of February, 
1815, to receive in person from our beloved Jackson himself a 
detailed account of the occurrences of that memorable night. I 
shall never forget the valuable lesson of instruction derived from 
his graphic account of those occurrences. 

"Jackson attributed many of the casualties suffered by his 
troops in this most brilliant of all his battles to the want of that 
minute knowledge of the theatre of action, most essential in a 
night attack, to enable the assailant to profit by the panic into 
which the unguarded foe is ever thrown by such an unlooked-for 
bold assault. Most of the forces under the command of Jackson 
upon that occasion had been hastily assembled. The different 
regiments and companies were, for the most part, strangers to 
each other, and wholly unacquainted with the vast swamp or the 
narrow pass through which the British army had approached the 
plantation upon which they had unwisely encamped for the night ; 
nor had our troops any knowledge of the plantation itself, in the 
back part of which they found, in their efforts to prevent the ene- 
my from turning their left flank, several ditches, drains, or mud- 
holes, by which they were much embarrassed. 

"With an accurate knowledge of the topography of the place 
and of each other, the few slender battalions under Jackson, 
amounting to little over 2000 men, would probably have forced 
the British army, taken by surprise and panic-stricken as they 
were, to have laid down their arms that night. As it was, no 
man of experience can doubt that this conflict secured the splen- 
did triumph of the 8th of January, 1815, and thus saved New 
Orleans." 



-j^gQ LIFE AND TIMES OF 

commerce of the country and the adminis- 
tration of the government. 

This was his exclamation when Louis 
Philij)pe was juggling and huckstering in- 
stead of paying the indemnity due to us by 
the French. His outburst of patriotic reso- 
lution resounded across the Atlantic, and 
the money was paid. 

This^ too, was doubtless his exclamation 
in his last wrestle with the tempting fiend 
in the dark valley of the shadow of death, 
when his thoughts were upon that God 
whom he had so long worshiped in spirit 
and in truth. 

On the third day after crossing the lake, 
past midnight, I halted at General Win- 
chester's quarters in Mobile, and an orderly 
roused him up. I handed him his dispatch, 
and he said he would be ready for me at day- 
light. At sunrise he w^as not ready, but 
sent word to me to come at ten A.M. At 
that hour he said it would be twelve before 
he could be ready. I replied that if he was 
not ready then I should go without them. 
At twelve precisely I rode by, and the pa- 
pers w^ere handed to me. For the want of 




DAI.B STOPPED BY THE SENTIIS'ELS. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^63 

a boat, I was compelled to go to Randon's 
Landing, cross in a canoe, and swim Paddy 
over the Alabama River, then very full. 
Swimming all the large streams on the way, 
for they were very high, and incessant rain, 
freezing as it fell, camping under a tree for 
a few hours at night, I reached Fort Deca- 
tur, on the Tallapoosa, on the fifth day from 
Mobile. M'Intosh's army was encamped 
there. It was the coldest night I ever ex- 
perienced, and my clothes were glued to my 
body. I was challenged by two sentinels as 
I rode up, who said I would have to report 
to the main guard, half a mile to the right, 
before I could be admitted into the lines. 
I replied that "I should be dead before I 
could get there. I am freezing. Fire the 
alarm if you choose, but don't shoot me. 
You know me and my business." One of 
them ran forward to apprise the general, 
and I rode toward his quarters. He met 
me fifty yards from his marquee, and de- 
manded my name. ''Light, Major Dale, 
light." Perceiving my condition, he aided 
me to dismount, put his arm round me, and 
assisted me in. He had a rousing fire made. 



154 LIFE AND TIMES OF • 

and some hot whisky set before me. He 
would not let me speak until my exhausted 
energies were restored and I had drunk a 
pint of strong coffee, and then he asked for 
the news. I pulled out my dispatch, but he 
threw it on the table, and said, ' ' You must 
tell it." When I related the incidents of 
the great battle and the flight of the enemy, 
this veteran soldier wept like a child, and 
then shouted like a madman. Such huzzas 
I never heard before or since. The officers 
came crowding in half dressed, and then the 
men in masses around the door, and I was 
obliged to stand there and repeat the story 
till daylight. The general then insisted on 
my taking some rest, and had to place a 
guard at the door, such was the 'desire of all 
to hear more of the glorious 8th of January. 

I shall never fear for my country while 
such a spirit prevails. 

Next day, Major Woolfolk, who was sta- 
tioned at Fort Jackson, applied to General 
M'Intosh for supplies, as his garrison was 
starving. The general pleaded that he had 
barely enough for his own command, and 
the major turned away in tears. I said, 



GfENERAL SAMUEL DALE. • 105 

"General, you are on your way to Mobile. 
I have a thousand bushels of corn housed 
near Fort Claiborne, on your route ; supply 
Major Woolfolk, and take of mine what you 
need." He directed me then to examine 
his stores and report what could be spared, 
and I reported twenty barrels of flour and 
five thousand pounds of pork. The general 
afterward told me that this was one of the 
most gratifying acts of his life. 

Next morning, on my faithful Paddy, 
now quite recruited, I set out for Milledge- 
ville. On the third evening, at sunset, I 
arrived there, and immediately waited on 
Governor Early with my dispatch. He 
warmly invited me to be his guest, but, 
travel-worn and fatigued, I preferred to go 
to the inn, but had scarcely got in bed be- 
fore I was serenaded, and the whole city was 
in a blaze of light. 

I was treated with great kindness and 
civility by the public-spirited citizens of that 
high-toned city. There was joy and exulta- 
tion all over Georgia. 

Soon after, I returned to Dale's Ferry 
and resumed business. 



IQQ LIFE AND TLMES OF 



CHAPTER X. 

Merchandising. — Elected to the Convention. — General Cowles 
Mead. — The Legislature of Alabama. — Savannah Jack. — 
Death of Captain Butler. — Breveted Brigadier General. — Re- 
ception of General La Fayette. — Removal of the Choctaws. — 
Settles in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. 

While thus engaged merchandising and 
farming at Dale's Ferry, Monroe County, 
which then composed almost a territory of 
itself, Governor Holmes appointed me col- 
onel of the militia, assessor and collector for 
the county, and commissioner to take the 
census and organize beats or precincts, with 
blank commissions for justices of the peace, 
sheriff, constables, and other civil offices. 
On receipt of these, I requested him to ad- 
dress them directly to the persons he prefer- 
red ; but he wrote back that he would rely 
wholly on my discretion. I accepted these 
trusts with diffidence, and endeavored to dis- 
charge them faithfully. 

In 1816 I was elected a delegate to a con- 
vention called to divide the Mississippi Ter- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 1^7 

ritory, the western portion to form a state, 
and the eastern to constitute the Alabama 
Territory. The Convention assembled on 
Pearl River, at the house of John Ford, an 
old settler, who has left many worthy de- 
scendants. General Cowles Mead, whom I 
had known in Georgia, presided over the 
Convention. He was a lawyer by profes- 
sion ; had been elected to Congress in Geor- 
gia, but lost his election after a contest in 
the House ; was then sent out by President 
JeiFerson as Secretary for the Mississippi 
Territory, and was acting governor when 
Burr was arrested and brought to Washing- 
ton, the seat of the territorial government, 
for trial. In 1812-13 he was appointed col- 
onel of volunteers, and while waiting at Ba- 
ton Pouge for orders to march to the frontier, 
he was induced to become a candidate for 
Congress. His resignation under such cir- 
cumstances was seized on by the opposition, 
and he was defeated by Christopher Pankin, 
then a young lawyer of Amite County. He 
never recovered from this defeat and the bit- 
ter assaults made upon him, and it rendered 
him sometimes cynical and harsh. He re- 



IQQ LIFE AND TIMES OF 

moved into the county of Jefferson ; was oft- 
en elected to the Legislature, where he usu- 
ally occupied the speaker's chair, and was 
the best presiding officer I ever saw. Prompt, 
courteous, yet decided, and often imperative, 
he not only preserved order, but diffused the 
dignity of the chair over the whole House. 
He was a fluent and graceful debater, rather 
pompous, impairing the force of his logic by 
the redundancy of his rhetoric. He was of 
elevated and noble sentiments ; of unques- 
tionable courage ; irritable, but generous ; 
full of anecdote and wit ; a delightful com- 
panion, and a faithful friend. He finally 
died in Clinton, Hinds County, Mississip- 
pi, in the communion of the Presbyterian 
Church, and at peace with all mankind. 

My mercantile operations at Dale's Fer- 
ry, especially in 1817, were disastrous. The 
influx of immigrants was incessant, and, of 
course, they came destitute of provisions, and 
hundreds of them without means. The sup- 
ply in the country w^as very small, and whol- 
ly inadequate to the demand. From Line 
Creek to the Escambia, from the Warrior, 
Tallapoosa, and Cahawba, and far to the 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. -^qq 

north, tliey came with their wagons to me 
for supplies. Bread was the first demand. 
With tears, with persuasions, even with 
threats they demanded it. Human nature 
was not proof against such distress. I had 
saved four thousand dollars in cash, the re- 
sult of long years of toil, public service, and 
privation, and, taking every dollar of it, I 
went to Mobile, and invested it, and staked 
my credit, to save the country from fam- 
ine. These supplies I distributed, on twelve 
months' credit, among thousands of people, 
many of them utter strangers to me, and it 
ended in my ruin. 

In 1817 I was a delegate to the first Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Alabama Territory, at 
St. Stephen's, and while there, owing to some 
manifestations of Indian hostility, Governor 
Bibb conferred on me the commission of col- 
onel. Shortly after, the family of one Ogle 
and several other persons were murdered, in 
what is now Butler County, by a party led 
by Savannah Jack, one of the bloodiest vil- 
lains that ever infested any country. It was 
a horrid butchery, and was folloAved by oth- 
ers, until the whole country became alarmed. 

H 



170 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

About the same time, Captain Butler, Cap- 
tain Saifold, and party, were attacked. The 
former, and several of his men, were killed. 
Saffold, a brave and very collected man, al- 
most miraculously escaped.* Hastily re- 
cruiting thirty volunteers, I marched in the 
direction of the "Flat" and Fort Bibb, and 
interred the bodies of the dead. These had 
been shockingly mutilated; and poor But- 
ler's heart had been cut out, and suspended 
on a stake. I was engaged in this desultory 
war several months, during which I strength- 
ened Fort Bibb, and erected Fort Dale, and 
otherwise provided for the security of the 
settlements. It was impossible ta bring 
these Indians — not more than sixty or sev- 
enty warriors — to action. In the dead of 
night or the silence of the ambuscade, in 
small parties, they would murder some un- 
guarded family, and retreat into the impen- 
etrable swamps and cane - brakes of Chu- 
latchee, Bogue Chito, Warrior, and Sij^sey. 

* The remains of Captain William Butler and Gardner Shaw, 
who were killed on the 4th of March, 1818, by Savannah Jack 
and his party, thirteen miles west of Greenville, Alabama, were 
removed last summer and interred in the village grave-yard. 
Theu' skulls still showed the marks of the murderous tomahawk. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 17^ 

Finally, they were so closely pursued by Col- 
onel Hunter, Major Taylor, Captain Bacon, 
and others, that they secretly left the coun- 
try, probably making their way across the 
Mississippi, and were never more heard of. 

In 1819-20 I served in the Legislature at 
St. Stephen's and Cahawba, and in '21 was 
appointed, in conjunction with William 
Young, Charles Crawford, and John Coon, 
to locate public roads from Tuscaloosa to 
Pensacola, and thence to Blakely and Fort 
Claiborne. We were engaged seventy-eigM 
days, hard labor. 

On the completion of this duty, the Legis- 
lature of Alabama, at the session of 1821, 
adopted resolutions referring to my military 
services in very gratifying terms, and con- 
ferred on me the rank of brigadier general, 
with the emoluments of a colonel in the 
army of the United States for life. 

In '24 I was again a member of the Legis- 
lature, and had the honor of being on the 
committee to meet and escort General La Fay- 
ette to the capital of Alabama. Governor 
Murphy, Colonel Freeman, Boiling Hall, 
John D, Bibb, and myself, constituted the 



I>j2 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

committee.'^ We met him and his suite at 
the Chattahoochee, and, with an imposing 
cortege, conducted him to the seat of govern- 
ment. The most remarkable feature of his 
reception was the enthusiasm manifested by 
the Creek warriors on the route. At the 
Chattahoochee we found Chilly M'Intosh 
(son of the famous General M'Intosh), with 
a large party of warriors, who marched past 
the general in single file, each one giving 
him their hand. They then, at his request, 
went through the exercises of the ball-play, 
a display of strength and activity such as 
the nations of antiquity never witnessed, 
and only to be seen among the Southern 
tribes, who, by the way, are su]3erior, phys- 
ically and intellectually, more warlike, and 
capable of a higher civilization than any of 
the Northern or Western races. I refer more 
particularly to the Choctaws, Cherokees, 

* I can not, of course, enumerate all the distinguished men 
who were of this party. The military escort was commanded by 
my old friend General Thomas S. Woodward, a man whose life 
has been full of incident and adventure of startling interest. Cap- 
tain Abercrombie and Captain Moore, Colonel James Johnson, 
ex-Governor Murphy, John D, Bibb, John N. Freeman, Dan- 
dridge Bibb, and others, were along. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 173 

Chickasaws, and Creeks, whose experiments 
in republican government, and the adminis- 
tration of an enlightened system of laws, 
are now attracting the admiration of man- 
kind. 

When we reached the Callabee swamp, 
usually very bad, the Indians had preceded 
us, and had laid down poles, and across them 
heavy transverse logs to prevent them from 
floating, themselves in the water, and hold- 
ing down the logs until the procession pass- 
ed over. They escorted the general to the 
confines of their territory, evidently regard- 
ing him as a great warrior, deserving this 
spontaneous homage to his fame. 

From 1825 to 1828 I served in the Ala- 
bama Legislature. In 1831, Colonel George 
S. Gaines and myself Avere commissioned by 
the Secretary of War to remove the Choc- 
taws to their new home on Arkansas and 
Red Kivers. By the treaty of Dancing 
Rabbit Creek they had ceded all their fine 
domain in Mississippi and Alabama, except 
a few special reservations and contingent 
claims. This treaty was brought about by 
pressure. The Indian is ever averse to the 



174 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

surrender of land. Though only tenants in 
common, they have a superstitious reverence 
for the soil of their birth and the ashes of 
their ancestors. The Southern Indians 
fought long and bravely for their homes; 
the achievements of the Creeks rival the 
prodigies of antiquity. At an earlier pe- 
riod, the Chickasaws, single-handed, defied 
and defeated the science and power of the 
French of Louisiana, directed by officers 
trained in the armies of Europe. The Choc- 
taws did not resist the cession of their coun- 
try by force of arms ; their chiefs concerted 
it, and, appealing to the tradition of their 
tribe that they had never shed the blood of 
a white man, silent submission was readily 
obtained. The Legislature of Mississippi — 
by an act of consummate policy and of ab- 
solute sovereignty, but of controverted con- 
stitutionality in respect to her relations with 
the federal government and its relations to 
the Indian tribes — ^had extended her juris- 
diction over the Choctaws, attaching their 
whole territory to her coterminous counties, 
and taking cognizance of crimes and mis- 
demeanors committed within the same. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. -j^^g 

This act brought about the treaty. It ex- 
tinguished the powers and authority of the 
chiefs, abolished the tribal immunities and 
penalties, and would have subjected the 
untutored Indian to the cupidity and cun- 
ning of a dominant and instructed race. 
From the passage of this act — introduced 
by the Hon. William Haile, who had for- 
mei4y been in Congress, but was then the 
representative from Hancock County — op- 
position ceased, and the treaty was made. 

I found the great .body of the Choctaws 
very sad ; making no arrangements, until 
the last moment, to remove ; clinging around 
their humble cabins, and returning again 
and again to the resting-places of their dead. 
Even the sternest warriors, trained to sup- 
press every emotion, appeared unmanned, 
and, when we camped at night, many of 
them stole back, in the darkness, twenty, 
thirty, and even forty miles, to take ''a last 
fond look'' at the graves of their household, 
soon to be trampled upon by a more enter- 
prising and less sentimental race. Some, 
who had not yet buried their dead — for it is 
the custom of the Choctaws to expose the 



I'JQ LIFE AND TIMES OF 

dead on scaffolds for a certain time, during 
which they spend many hours every day 
weeping round their remains — absolutely 
refused to go until the allotted time for 
these ceremonies had expired. We left 
them in their country, and they afterward 
removed. 

I purchased of Ia-cha-ho23a his reserve of 
two sections of land, being my present resi- 
dence, near Daleville, Lauderdale County, 
Mississippi, and removed to it immediately. 
I was now authorized to collect and trans- 
port the Indians that remained on the ceded 
lands, and set out for that purpose ; but 
when I got some ten miles from home, on a 
trail through the woods, my horse fell, and 
rolled over on me. My shoulder was badly 
dislocated, and my other injuries so severe 
that I was compelled to abandon the emi- 
gration service. 




(JENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I'JJ 



CHAPTER XI. 

General Dale visits Washington. — Interview with General Jack- 
son.— Their Farewell.— Mr. Calhoun.— Mr. Clay.— Mr. Web- 
ster. — Mr. Benton. — Character of General Jackson. — F. P. 
Blair. — The Oyster-supper. — Joseph Gales. — Peter Force. — 
Printers in the South. — Clerkships at Washington. — Boarding- 
houses. — Scandal. — Gallantry. — Citizens and Congressmen. — 
A Braggart rebuked. — The Ladies of Washington. — Indian 
Girls. — Peter Hagner. — Dale's early Home. — The Graves of 
his Parents. 

About this time I resolved to visit Wash- 
ington City, to attend to my claim for a large 
amount due me for corn and other supplies 
furnished to the troops in the service of the 
United States at various times, and on the 
expedition to Fort Dale, in Butler County. 
On arriving, I put up at Brown's Hotel, and 
next day went to the quarters of the Alaba- 
ma delegation. The third day, Colonel Wil- 
liam B. King, of the Senate, brought me 
word that President Jackson desired to see 
me. "Tell Dale," said he to Colonel King, 
"that if I had as little to do as he has, I 

should have seen him before now.*" The gen- 

H2 



178 ^^^^ AND TIMES OF 

eral was walking in the lawn in front of his 
mansion as we approached. He advanced, 
and grasped me warmly by the hand. 

^' No introduction is needed/' said the col- 
onel. 

''Oh no," said the general, shaking my 
hand again, ''I shall never forget Sam Dale." 
We walked into his reception-room, and I 
was introduced to Colonel Benton, and five 
or six other distinguished men. They were 
all very civil, and invited me to visit them. 
They were talking over ''^ Nullification^^' the 
engrossing subject at that period, and the 
President, turning to me, said, " General 
Dale, if this thing goes on, our country will 
be like a bag of meal with both ends open. 
Pick it up in the middle or endwise, and it 
will run out. I must tie the bag and save 
the country. " The company now took leave, 
but when I rose to retire with Colonel King, 
the general detained me, ordered up some 
whisky, and directed his servant to refuse all 
visitors until one o'clock. He talked over 
our campaigns, and then of the business that 
brought me to Washington. He then said, 
" Sam, you have been true to your country, 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. . I79 

but you have made one mistake in life. You 
are now old and solitary, and without a bo- 
som friend or family to comfort you. God 
called mine away. But all I have achieved — 
fame, power, every thing — would I exchange 
if she could be restored to me for a moment. " 

The iron man trembled with emotion, and 
for some time covered his face with his hands, 
and tears dropped on his knee. I was deep- 
ly affected myself. He took two or three 
turns across the room, and then abruptly 
said, '^Dale, they are trying me here; you 
will witness it ; but, by the God of heaven, 
I will uphold the laws." 

I understood him to be referrino- to nulli- 
fication again, his mind evidently having re- 
curred to it, and I expressed the hope that 
things would go right. 

"They shall go right, sir, "he exclaimed, 
passionately, shivering his pipe upon the 
table. 

He calmed down after this, and showed 
me his collection of pipes, many of a most 
costly and curious kind, sent to him from 
every quarter, his propensity for smoking be- 
ing well known. "These," said he, "will 



130 ^If'E AND TIMES OF 

do to look at. I still smoke my corn-cob, 
Sam, as you and I have often done together : 
it is the sweetest and best pipe/' 

When I rose to take leave, he pressed me 
to accept a room there. "I can talk to you 
at night ; in the day I am beset." I declined 
on the plea of business, but dined with him 
several times, always, no matter what digni- 
taries were present, sitting at his right hand. 
He ate very sparingly, only taking a single 
glass of wine, though his table was magnifi- 
cent. When we parted for the last time, he 
said, "My friend, farewell ; we shall see each 
other no more ; let us meet in heaven.'' 

I could only answer him with tears, for I 
felt that we should meet no more oh earth. 

The Alabama delegation each invited me 
to a formal dinner, and introduced me very 
generally to the members. Mr. Calhoun 
was particularly kind. It was from him 
that I first received the assurance that the 
nullification trouble would be settled. He 
was a man of simple manners, very j^lain in 
his attire, of the most moral habits, intense- 
ly intellectual, something of an enthusiast, 
and, if personally ambitious, unquestionably 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. Ig^ 

equally ambitious for the glory of his coun- 
try. His style of speaking was peculiar — 
fluent, often vehement, but wholly without 
ornament ; he rarely used a figure of speech ; 
his gestures were few and simple, but he 
spoke with his eyes — they were full of con- 
centrated fire, and looked you through ; he 
was earnest in every thing. He foiind his 
way very soon to my heart, and I then, and 
now, deeply regret the dissension sowed by 
intriguers between him and General Jack- 
son. 

When I visited Colonel Benton at five 
o'clock in the evening, I Avas conducted to 
him in a room where he was surroimded by 
his children and their school-books — he was 
teaching them himself That very day he 
had presented an elaborate report to the 
Senate, the result of laborious research, and 
had pronounced a powerful speech, yet here 
he was, with French and Spanish grammars, 
globes, and slate and pencil, instructing his 
children in the rudiments : he employed no 
teacher. The next morning I was stroll- 
ing, at sunrise, in the Capitol grounds, when 
whom should I see but the colonel and his lit- 



182 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

tie ones. Shaking me by the hand, he said, 
''These are my pickaninies, general — my 
oply treasures. I bring them every morning 
among the flowers, sir; it teaches them to 
love God. Yes, sir, it teaches them to love 
God — love God, sir. '' I was struck with the 
sentiment, and with the labor this great man 
performed ; and yet he never seemed to be 
fatigued. He Avas not a man of conciliatory 
manners, and seemed to me to be always 
braced up for an attack. He spoke with a 
sort of snarl — a protracted sneer uj)on his 
face — but with great emphasis and vigor. 
His manner toward his opponents, and es- 
pecially his looks, were absolutely insulting, 
but it was well known that he was ready to 
stand up to whatever he said or did. It 
is wonderful how he and Mr. Clay avoided 
personal collision ; they hated each other 
mortally at one period; they spoke very 
harsh and cutting things in debate ; both 
were proud, ambitious, obstinate, and imper- 
ative ; both were fearless of consequences, 
and, though habitually irascible and impetu- 
ous, perfectly collected in moments of emer- 
gency. They differed on almost every point, 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I33 

and only agreed cordially on one — both 
hated Mr. Calhoun. As an orator Mr. Clay 
never had his equal in Congress. I would 
liken him, from what I have heard, to Mr. 
Pitt. No single speech that that consum- 
mate orator and statesman ever made pro- 
duced the impression made by Sheridan in 
his celebrated oration on the impeachment 
of Hastings ; no speech of Mr. Clay's may 
be compared with the "great oration of Web- 
ster in reply to Hayne ; but, for a series of 
parliamentary speeches and parliamentary 
triumphs, no British orator may be comjDared 
with Pitt, and no American with Clay. To 
a very high order of intellect they both united 
a bold temperament, indomitable resolution, 
and the faculty of command — the highest 
faculty of all. Mr. Webster, with brilliant 
genius, with a wit less studied, if not so 
sparkling as Sheridan, and with oratorical 
gifts not. surpassed in ancient or modern 
times, was of a convivial, not of a resolute 
temperament, and was deficient in nerve 
and firmness. The want of these was felt 
throughout his career, and enabled others to 
succeed when he should have triumphed. 



134 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

As a companion, especially after dinner, 
he was most delightful ; at other times he 
was saturnine and repulsive. Mr. Clay was 
haughty, and only cordial to his friends. 
Colonel Benton was stiff with every one. 
Mr. Calhoun was affable and conciliating, 
and never failed to attract the young. But 
for grace of manner, for the just medium of 
dignity and affability, and for the capacity 
of influencing men, no one of those great 
men, nor all of them together, may be com- 
pared with General Jackson : the untutored 
savage regarded him as a sort of avenging 
deity ; the rough backwoodsman followed 
him with fearless confidence ; the theories 
of politicians and jurisconsults fell before 
his intuitive perceptions ; systems and states- 
men were extinguished together ; no measure 
and no man survived his opposition, and the 
verdict of mankind awards him precedence 
over all. He had faults, but they are lost 
in the lustre of his character; he was too 
arbitrary and passionate, and too apt to em- 
brace the cause of his friends without in- 
quiring into its justice ; but these were 
faults incidental, perhaps, to his frontier 




/ / ' / / 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I35 

life and military training, and to the in- 
justice he had experienced from his oppo- 
nents. 

I saw Blair, of the Globe ; Amos Ken- 
dall and Colonel Jo Gales, of the National 
Intelligencer. Blair has the hardest face I 
ever inspected. The late General Glass- 
cock, of Augusta, one of the noblest-heart- 
ed men that ever lived, told me that a mess 
of Georgia and Kentucky members, dining 
together one day, ordered an oyster-supper 
for thirty, to be paid for by the mess that 
produced, for the occasion, the ugliest man 
from their respective states. The evening 
came, the company assembled, and Georgia 
presented a fellow not naturally ugly, but 
who had the knack of throwing his features 
all on one side. Kentucky was in a peck 
of troubles. Their man, whom they had 
cooped up for a week, was so hopelessly 
drunk that he could not stand on his legs. 
At the last moment, a happy thought occur- 
red to Albert G. Hawes. He jumped in 
a hack, drove to the Globe office, and brought 
Blair down as an invited guest. Just as he 
entered, looking his prettiest, Hawes sung 



1S6 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

out, ''Blair, look as Nature made you, and 
the oysters are ours, hy G-d /" 

It is hardly necessary to add that Georgia 
paid for the oysters. 

The first time I saw Blair, about eleven 
o'clock at night, he was writing an editorial 
on his knee. He read it to Colonel King 
and myself. It was a thundering attack on 
Mr. Calhoun — what is called a "slasher'' — 
for something that had been said that morn- 
ing in the Senate. Colonel King begged 
him to soften it. "No," said Blair, "let 
it tear his insides out." With all this con- 
cealed fire, he was a man of singular mild- 
ness of manners. He invited me to an 
elegant dinner at his splendid mansion, 
crowded with distinguished guests. He en- 
tertained liberally and without affectation, 
and I was charmed with the beauty and the 
kindness of his fascinating wife. 

Amos Kendall, of whom I had heard so 
much as the champion of the democracy, I 
found a little, stooped-up man, cadaverous 
as a corpse, rather taciturn, unpretending 
in manner, but of wonderful resources and 
talent. 



ri; ' I' 




THE UGUEST MAN. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. ^89 

Colonel Jo Gales is a John Ball, they 
tell me, by birth and in sentiment, and he 
has the hearty look of one. But if so, how 
came the Bulls to burn his office during the 
war? The "Intelligencer," I well remem- 
ber, stood up manfully for the country, and 
often have I and my comrades, in 1813-14, 
when hungry and desponding, and beset 
with danger, been cheered up by a stray 
fragment of his paper. Colonel Gales shook 
me cordially by the hand, and invited me to 
dine with him. Being compelled to decline, 
he insisted on my taking a drink out of his 
canteen — the very best old rye ever tasted. 
The same evening he sent a dozen to my 
quarters — large, honest, square-sided, high- 
shouldered bottles, that we rarely see nowa- 
days. 

The printers at Washington all live in 
princely style ; spacious dwellings, pictures, 
statuary, Parisian furniture, sumptuous ta- 
bles, choice wines ! Nothing in the me- 
tropolis astonished me so much. A printer 
in the South usually lives in a little box of 
a house, not big enough for furniture ; his 
pictures and statues are his wife and chil- 



190 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

dren ; his office is a mere shanty, stuck full 
of glue and paste, and all sorts of traps ; he 
works in his coat-sleeves, with the assistance, 
sometimes, of a little, ragged, turbulent dare- IJ 
devil of a boy ; he toils night and day, often fl 
never paid and half starved, making great 
men out of small subjects, and often receiv- 
ing for it abuse and ingratitude ; the most 
generous fellows in the world — ready to give 
you half they have, though they seldom get 11 
much to give. In Washington they drink fl 
Port, Madeira, and old rye; with us they 
seldom get higher than rot-gut!"^ 

* From the New Orleans Delta. 

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE METROPOLITAN PRESS. 

The following paragraph is going the rounds of the newspapers : 

"Just look at the luck of Washington City editors. Gales has 
a country seat ; Seaton has a country seat ; Blair has Silver 
Spring; Rives the dueling-ground; Kendall has a place near 
town ; Major Heiss owns a fine place ; Mr. Eitchie purchased the 
princely mansion fronting La Fayette Square and the White House, 
built by Corcoran, of the firm of Corcoran and Eiggs; General 
DnfF Green has a number of places, including a large interest in 
the Cumberland coal mines." 

There is some truth in this, mixed up with a good deal of var- 
nish ; but in these few lines the names of the most distinguished 
men connected with the press in our country are grouped together, 
and they form too brilliant a galaxy to pass unnoticed. 

Mr. Joseph Gales, well known for half a century as the senior 
editor of the National Intelligencer, is an Englishman by birth. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 291 

I called several times to see Colonel Peter 
Force, then, I believe, the Mayor of Wash- 

nui'tured in North Carolina, and is entitled to be placed, every 
thing considered, at the head of the first class of American edit- 
ors. His career is an instructive illustration of the vicissitudes of 
partv. During the administrations of Madison and Monroe, the 
Intelligencer was considered, very justly, the bulwark of the Re- 
publican organization. It was the stalwart advocate for Avar with 
Great Britain, and ably seconded Mr. Clay in his brilliant efforts 
on the floor of Congress to maintain the honor, rights, and arms 
of om* country. When the British army captured the seat of gov- 
ernment, they destroyed the office of the Intelligencer in revenge. 
They adopted, it may be presumed, the maxim of Napoleon : "A 
journalist !" said he ; " that means a grumbler, a censurer, a giver 
of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile 
newspapers are more to be di-eaded than a hundred thousand bay- 
onets." 

And so they burned the printing-office of Mr. Gales, and cast 
his type into the streets. 

When the great contest for the presidency ensued during the 
closing year of Monroe's administration, and Mr. Adams, Mr. 
Cra\\'ford, and Mr. Calhoun, members of his cabinet, were candi- 
dates, and likewise General Jackson and Mr. Clay, the Intelli- 
gencer took its stand for Mr. Adams, who, ever since his secession 
from the Federalists in 1807, had been regarded as one of the 
leaders of the Republican party. During the four years of his 
administration the Intelligencer was the official organ, and it en- 
tered with great zeefl into the canvass against General Jackson. 
It subsequently signalized itself by a steady and able support of 
Mr. Clay, adhering, it must be conceded, in all these stages, to the 
same great principles it supported — and the Republicans support- 
ed—during the presidency of Monroe. It is certainly entitled to 
the merit of consistency, and there is no leading press in either 
hemisphere conducted with the same dignity, forbearance, and de- 
corum. In this respect it is a model to the newspaper world, 



X92 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ington. He asked me many questions about 
the Indians, and as often as I answered him 

while in point of ability it stands in the highest rank. Mr. Gales 
is now long past the meridian of life. He is a living political au- 
tobiography, having known intimately the statesmen, the diplo- 
matists, the belles, and the intrigues of three generations. What 
amusing memoirs he might write ! He is generous and hospitable 
even to a fault. A professed epicure and fond of a rich cellar, 
the pleasures of the table and the facility with which his purse 
opens to every application have always kept him comparatively 
poor. If he has a country seat I never discovered it, but his ta- 
ble is one of the most recherche and hospitable in the city, enli- 
vened by his anecdotes and wit, and graced by one of the most 
accomplished of her sex. 

Francis P. Blaik, better known as "Blair of the Globe," com- 
menced his career as an editor at Frankfort, Kentucky. Amos 
Kendall was at one time his associate. Originally friendly to Mr. 
Clay, and connected with him by mamage, he subsequently, with 
the great body of what was then called the New Court party in 
Kentucky, attached himself to General Jackson, and followed the 
fortunes of that great man to Washington, where he established 
the Globe. It speedily became the national organ of the Demo- 
cratic party and a prevailing influence at the White House. It 
maintained its ascendency, notwithstanding occasional and violent 
opposition in the Democratic ranks, to the close of the next ad- 
ministration. Mr. Blair was constantly consulted by both Jackson 
and Van Buren. It is certain he never betrayed them, though he 
had been charged with treachery to Mr. Clay. His paper was ul- 
tra from the outset, and gradually became radical, never exhibit- 
ing, at any crisis, the slightest hesitation or timidity. It never 
went for half-way measures. Its tone was bold, dogmatical, and 
defiant ; its denunciations savage and ferocious ; its sarcasms bit 
like ^-ipers, and friends and foes alike dreaded its fangs. As a 
partisan journal, it was conducted with eminent ability, and with 
rare fidelity and com'age. It never betrayed its party or was un- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I93 

he would take up first one book and then 
another, and show me that other nations, 

grateM to its friends. On the opposition it made indiscriminate 
war ; it charged at the point of the bayonet, and neither submis- 
sion nor flight arrested its merciless tomahawk. I remember but 
one exception — it was always tender to Mr. Crittenden, even when 
flaying alive his bosom friends. 

Mr. Blair is considered a remarkably ugly man. His features 
are hard indeed, but his countenance evinces benevolence; nor 
does it belie him. His manners are bland, his temper mild, and 
one would never suppose that he could indite the terrible invec- 
tives that daily emanated from his prolific and vigorous pen. It 
was a volcano constantly in eruption, blazipg, burning, overwhelm- 
ing with its lava-floods all that ventured to withstand it. Mr. 
Blair wrote with singular facilit;^- ''His most powerful leaders 
w^ere jotted down upon his knee^ in the oflSce, on scraps of paper, 
and passed immediately to the compositor — mental daguerreo- 
types leaping from a brain of prodigious energy. 

During his residence in Washington he accumulated a hand- 
some fortune. He lived in elegant style, and his mansion, conse- 
crated and adorned by household divinities, whom to see was to 
worship, was constantly crowded with distinguished guests. He 
has for several years been enjoying the otium cum dignitate in a 
beautiful retreat near the metropolis, but, I am sorry to perceive, 
has returned to political life, and is wandering after false gods, 
forsaking the faith of the fathers, and trampling into the dust its 
holy emblems. 

If the Globe owed its reputation to Mr. Blau-, he is mainly in- 
debted for his fortune to the indomitable energy and fine talent of 
his partner, Mr. John C. Rives, who was charged with the busi- 
ness concerns of their extensive establishment. Mr. Rives is a 
huge, burly figure, from Fi*anklin, the roughest county in Virginia. 
He has a strong and masculine matter-of-fact mind, a shaggy ex- 
terior, and very brusque manners. Many of your Mississippi read- 
ers remember the late Robert Cook, of Lexington, Holmes County, 

I 



ig^ LIFE AND TIMES OF 

now, and in ancient times, in other quarters 
of the world, have similar customs. He 

adjutant general of the state — an ungainly, rough-hewn, awkward 
man, of noble heart. He and Rives were cousins, and much alike, 
except that Cook was an Apollo compared with Rives. He is one 
of the shrewdest of men. His mind was originally purely mathe- 
matical, but the printing-office, the best school in the world, poured 
its radiance into it, and, if he does not adorn every thing he 
touches, he has the gift of Midas, and turns things into gold. He 
made a large fortune out of the old Globe establishment, and still 
coins money out of the Congressional Globe. He never made but 
one failure ; that was when he bought the Bladensburg dueling- 
ground and turned gentleman farmer. In his office he is a Co- 
lossus, but on his farm a mere theorist, with the shabbiest stock, 
the meanest fences, and the poorest crops in the county. 

Mr. Rives is a man of warm and humane heart. Merit in mis- 
fortune finds in him a steady friend. He is one of the few rich 
men I know who recur with pride to their former poverty ; and it 
is his boast that, after he had acquired wealth, and was looking 
around for a wife, he chose one from the bindery of his o\mi office, 
where sixty young females were employed. And well may he 
boast ; for, with characteristic good sense, he selected one whose 
grace, beauty, and virtue would ornament and honor the most ele- 
vated sphere. 

The career of Amos Kendall is so well known I shall merely 
glance at it. The son of a plain farmer — a hard-working student 
at a New England college — tutor in the family of Mr. Clay — a 
party editor in Kentucky — postmaster general and biographer of 
Andi-ew Jackson — chief director of the National Telegraph — now 
quietly composing memoirs of his times for posthumous publica- 
tion. He is imiversally known for his talents as a writer, his 
capacity for organization and details, his unconquerable industry 
and ability to labor. When I first saw him he had a wheezing 
voice, an asthmatic cough, with a stooping frame, and a phthisicky 
physiognomy, reminding one of Madame Roland's description of 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 295 

was the quickest man with books I ever 
saw, and seemed to dote on them, particu- 

the great war minister, Louvet, ''ill-looking, weakly, near-sight- 
ed, and slovenly — a mere nobody in the crowd." Yet this little 
whiffet of a man, whom the Hoosiers would not call even an "in- 
dividual," nothing more than a "remote circumstance," was the 
Atlas that bore upon his shoulders the weight of Jackson's admin- 
istration. He originated or was consulted in advance upon eveiy 
great measure, and what the prompt decision and indomitable 
will of the illustrious chief resolved upon, the subtle and discrim- 
inating intellect of Kendall elaborated and upheld. His style is 
both logical and eloquent. He is, besides, a man of dates and 
figures — one of those persons whose provoking exactitude so often 
upsets theories with a plain statement. Tristram Burgess, of 
Rhode Island, one of the few men that ever encountered Jack 
Randolph successfully, being once thus put down by Kendall, said, 
"It was very unbecoming in a fact to rise up in opposition to his 
theory. " 

No man, morally, has been more variously estimated than this 
gentleman. Mr. Clay told me that he reminded him of Marechal 
Villars, whom St. Simons, in his memoirs, describes as having but 
one virtue — he was faithful to his friend. To save him, there was 
no depth of servility or baseness to which he would not descend — 
but that friend ic as himself. 

His enejnies allege that he was, like Swift, the greatest libeler of 
the day, and possessed all the qualifications it requires : a vindictive 
temper, no admiration of noble qualities, no sympathy with suflfer- 
ing, no conscience, but a clear head, a cold heart, a biting wit, a 
sarcastic humor, a thorough knowledge of the baser parts of hu- 
man nature, and a perfect familiarity with every thing that is low 
in language and vulgar in society. 

These, however, are extreme opinions. Many who know Mr. 
Kendall intimately attribute to him exalted public and private vir- 
tue and great generosity of heart. That he has an appreciation 
of the noble and illustrious is demonstrated bv his ardent attach- 



196 I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

larly the old, worn-looking ones. I met no 
man who interested me so much. 

ment and unwavering fidelity to General Jackson. That he has 
great moral courage is evident from the fact that in no emergency 
was he ever known to retreat, but stood, like a savage, with his 
spear in his hand, and his bow and quiver at his back. We must 
make allowances for contemporary praise and censure. Men and 
parties are not so formed that there are only gods on one side and 
only devils on the other. 

Mr. Kendall was once embarrassed in his circumstances, but 
was relieved by fortunate investments in Western lands. He has 
a country seat near Washington, but when I saw it, many years 
since, it was a skeleton farm, and, like himself, meagre and ema- 
ciated. Like his friend and colaborer, the Honorable Thomas H. 
Benton, he is now devoting himself to literary labors for posterity, 
and by those labors posterity will pass judgment upon his life and 
character. At present the opinion of the world is conflicting, and 
may be summed up thus : 

"■ Too bad for a blessing — too good for a curse ; 
I wish, from my soul, thou wert better — or worse." 

Mr. Calhoun was the youngest of five distinguished men whose 
names were presented for the presidency during the last year of 
Monroe's administration. A few years previous he had entered 
Congress, a young man, without antecedents, and soon signalized 
himself as one of the ablest debaters in an assembly adorned by 
Randolph, Clay, Gaston, Quincy, Pinckney, and other ' ' giants of 
those days." No man, except perhaps Mr. Pitt, ever acquired par- 
liamentary reputation so rapidly. But the English orator was the 
heir of the illustrious Chatham, who shook the British senate with 
his thunder, and he entered public life sustained by patrician in- 
fluences, with an organized party, powerful in numbers, but defi- 
cient in leadership, to uphold him. Mr. Calhoim began his career 
without any such advantages, and made his way solely by the force 
of intellect. At the outset, his opinions as to the constitutional 
powers of Congress were liberal almost to latitudinarianism. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 297 

Tavo things attracted my attention special- 
ly in Washington — the rage for clerkships, 
and the number of boarding-houses. 

These opinions were distinctly announced on the 4th of February, 
1817, in a speech in favor of internal improvements by the gen- 
eral government on the broadest scale. That speech recommend- 
ed him particularly to Pennsylvania, and for many years he con- 
tinued to be her favorite. Mr. Monroe soon after called him to 
the Department of War, which had long been in feeble hands, and 
the source of many evils during the recent conflict with Great 
Britain. He soon infused into it his characteristic order and en- 
ergy. His reports were elaborate and able, and continued to 
enunciate the views of his speech of 1817. It would be interest- 
ing and instructive to review the expansion and contraction of this 
great man's mind in regard to this mooted power. No man af- 
firmed it with moi*e emphasis ; no man, at a later period, opposed 
it with more zeal ; and yet, toward the close of his career, in the 
Memphis Convention, while argiiing against the general power, he 
returned practically to his early views by declaring the Mississippi 
River "a great inland sea," and therefore justifying any amount 
of national expenditure. But I am not writing the biography of 
Mr. Calhoun. I refer to those incidents only to show why and 
upon what grounds he was at that period presented for the presi- 
dency. The leading politicians of Pennsylvania, headed by Sam- 
uel D. Ingham, established a journal at Washington to support 
him. It was conducted by Thomas Agg, an Englishman, I be- 
lieve, who wrote with brilliancy and vigor. It was particularly 
venomous toward Mr. Crawford, by long odds the most prominent 
candidate — a man of stubborn courage and sterling virtue, who 
stood impregnable to the blows of his adversaries, but was placed 
hors du combat when his prospects were brightest by a stroke of 
paralysis, which deprived him of locomotion and speech. The 
Calhoun party of that day soon after merged in the Jackson party, 
but I believe Mr, Agg did not follow it into this alliance, but at- 



;j^98 - LIFE AND TIMES OF 

There is not, in any country, a more re- 
fined and intellectual body of men than the 

tached himself to Mr. Adams. I am ignorant of his subsequent 
career. He probably died in an obscure clerkship, the grave of 
I so much genius at Washington. 

About the same time Peter Force became conspicuous in the 
metropolis as a journalist. He was a stanch supporter of John 
Quincy Adams. He published the National Joui'nal and other 
papers. Mr. Force is a man of methodical mind and of singular 
industry. No man has contributed so much to our documentary 
history. His library is extensive, and abounds in rare pamphlets 
and journals. He still survives at Washington, and is the univer- 
sal referee and arbitrator in all matters of controversy connected 
with the literature or politics of our early times. 

We come now to General Duff Green. As editor of the 
"Telegraph" he was known and felt from one extremity of the 
Union to the other. At one time he exercised some influence in 
the councils of General Jackson, but he was too dogmatical and 
dictatorial to be long acceptable to the illustrious chief, who loved 
dictation too well to tolerate it in any one else. In the feud 
which soon sprang up between Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Calhoun, 
Duff Green sided with the latter, and gradually became violent 
and ultra in opposition. As an editor he was distinguished for 
great abilities and great defects. He appears to have adopted the 
maxim of Lysander, that it is impossible to do too much good to 
friends or too much evil to enemies, and he seemed to regard ev- 
ery man as dangerous who happened to be powerful. He lived in 
an atmosphere of combustion, and, as has been said of Bossuet, 
the remotest murmur of controversy reached his ear; the first 
flash of the combat awakened his wrath ; the first peal of the 
trumpet stiiTcd his blood, and in a moment, with rushing sound, 
like some storm-cloud rolling along the ridges of the mountains, 
he might be seen sweeping down to the carnage — the eagle of the 
Telegraph. His pen was like the scalpel of your distinguished 
surgeon, Dr. Warren Stone : it cut rough and deep, but cut effect- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. I99 

government clerks of Washington — hospi- 
table, obliging, honest, and laborious. But 

ually, and to the very root of ^yhat it undertook to extirpate. It 
probed the sore place of an adversary, and there it dwelt, tearing, 
mangling, torturing, whetting its bloody beak in the bowels of its 
victim, and lapping up the warm blood with the ferocity of a wolf. 
His tenacity of purpose in political combat was like the hold of a 
bull-dog. No blood-hound ever trailed a flying enemy with more 
untking accm-acy of scent. His faculty of opposition was super- 
naturally developed. In the assault he might be compared with 
Mad Anthony at Stony Point or Napoleon at the Bridge of Lodi. 
But he did not know how to profit by a victory. His mind was 
restless and experimental. He was always, like a sentinel at an 
outpost, on the qui vive for an intrigue. He was suspicious where 
he should have had confidence, and credulous where he should 
have been suspicious. He often distrusted his friends and credited 
his enemies. He was constitutionally impulsive, speculative, and 
hopeful, yet subject to paroxysms of the deepest despondency. 
His fine eye, when animated, was radiant and expressive, yet his 
physiognomy was often shrouded in gloom, and verged toward in- 
sanity and suicide. He was a true friend and a good hater ; an 
unscn^pulous apologist for those whom he Kked, remorseless as a 
Seminole on the war-path against his foes. A fair balance stnick 
between him and the politicians^ of the last thirty years would 
leave them largely his debtor. I have never heard of any favors 
conferred on him — no profitable jobs — no appointment commen- 
sm*ate with his abilities and services — but I know of signal mani- 
festations of ingratitude ; and it may be said of him that, after 
having fought with his party and suffered defeat in their cause, he 
retired, like Xantippus from Carthage, knowing that he had more 
to fear from their intrigues than to hope from their gratitude. 
The South never had a more steadfast defender. Her equality in 
the Union, the intangibility of her institutions under the Constitu- 
tion, was the north star by which he always steered ; no tempta- 
tion, no menace, no fear of shipwreck, no certainty of absolute 



200 I'lFE AND TIMES OF 

Congress, b y a mi serable and s hort-sight ed 
economy, directed the w rongs way, und er the 

< ;- .. . ■ —————— . ■ " ■ — — —^ 

ruin ever prevailed on him to deviate a hair's-breadth from his 
com'se. 

Contemporaiy with Duflf Green — sometimes acting in concert, 
but often against him — was a man, not his equal in natural abil- 
ities, but of superior tact, of better judgment, more genial in tem- 
per, and more persuasive in manner, who knew how to improve a 
victory and how to recover from a defeat — a man who seldom dis- 
trusted a friend, and was still more rarely deceived by an enemy 
— a man who, like old Kough and Keady, never surrendered, but 
chivalrously flung away his sword the moment he heard the cry 
of quarter — a man who counseled with the aged without becoming 
obsolete, and caressed the young without becoming an enthusiast 
— who enjoyed at once the confidence of the Wythes, the Roanes, 
the Barbours, and Taze wells, the sages of the renowned common- 
wealth, and the admiration of the Masons, the Eiveses, and the 
Floyds, who were then looming into power and pre-eminence — a 
man who united Parisian manners with republican simplicity, and 
had versatility without caprice, wit without malice, grace without 
affectation, courage without Quixotism, zeal without bigotiy, a 
warm imagination and a discriminating judgment, the tact of a 
comtier without the slightest approach to sen'ility or cunning, and 
patriotism on the broadest scale with the most intense Virginian- 
ism. I refer, of course, to the late Thomas Eitchie, of the Rich- 
mond Inquirer — "old Nous Verrons,^' as he was familiarly styled 
at every cross-road tavern in the commonwealth. 

Politics, says Bulwer, is the art of being wise for others. Policy 
is the art of being wise for one's self. The editor of the Inquirer 
was an adept in both. He conquered as often by conciliation and 
addi-ess as by the vigor of his onset. His most deadly javelins 
were adorned with flowers. Every thing that he said was frosted 
over with an incrustation of candor. He never fought without an 
object, and never threw aAvay his ammunition. Duff Green was 
pugnacious, and often fought for the mere pleasure of tilting. He 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 



201 



ad captandimi and contemptible cry of re- 
trencliment, has reduced this talented and 

was as fond of scalping as Doctor Stone is of dissecting. Thomas 
Eitcliie knew that he was able, when necessary, to beat down rocks. 
He never struck at shadows, and his opponents never laughed at 
his blows. 

In the great presidential contest to which I have referred, he 
supported Mr. Crawford (a citizen of Georgia, but a native of Vir- 
ginia) until his health becanxe hopeless, and thenceforward he re- 
luctantly yet zealously devoted the Inquirer to General Jackson, 
whom he had previously denounced with great asperity. But for 
the activity of Mr. Ritchie and the unbounded control of the In- 
quu'er over public opinion, the vote of Virginia would probably 
have been cast for Mr. Adams, who was supported there at that 
juncture by a powerful and brilliant party. His journal and in- 
fluence were then at their zenith, and he carried every thing his 
own way. It is doubtful whether General Jackson ever consid- 
ered his services, great as they were, an atonement for his early 
severity. There may have been some social intercourse — an am- 
nesty there undoubtedly was — but no love, I fancy, and little con- 
fidence. 

There were two critical periods in his editorial life that threat- 
ened him with shipvn-eck. One immediately after the Southamp- 
ton insurrection, when he broached doctrines looking to the total 
abolition of slavery ; the other where he took ground against the 
famous Specie Circular and the sub-treasmy, and openly preached 
state banks and conservatism. On both occasions, this wary and 
sagacious pilot, deceived by false lights, mistook the channel that 
public opinion finally flowed in ; but he soon wore ship and spread 
all sail on the right tack. He suddenly became the very Cerbe- 
rus of our "peculiar institutions," and the most inveterate oppo- 
nent of his former 2^rotege, Mr. William C. Rives, the distinguished 
leader of the ci-devant conservatives. 

When President Van Buren came out with his celebrated anti- 
Texas letter, a caucus was held at Washington, and it was de- 

12 



202 ^If'E ^^^ TIMES Ob' 

useful body of men to the lowest point at 
which men can live in the metropolis. 

termined to pre%''ent his renomination. That arrangement carried 
with it the necessity for a new Democratic organ, the "Globe" 
being devoted to Mr. Van Buren, and too stubborn to be coaxed 
or coerced. ]\Ii\ Eitchie Avas selected for the position. For this 
he was indebted to Eobert J. Walker, then a senator from Missis- 
sippi. In the consultations on this subject the President favored 
an editor from another state, whose pretensions were pressed with 
pertinacity. It was then that Mr. W^alker related the following 
anecdote ; The Marquis de Belle-Isle left the party of the League, 
and attached himself to Henry IV., in hopes of obtaining the ba- 
ton of France. To the application of his friends the king said, 
coldly, "Let him be satisfied Avith mj good graces ; 1 owe nothing 
to those who bring me nothing." Mr. Polk instantly decided; 
his first choice was discarded for the want of political influence, 
and Mr. Ritchie, after some coquetting on his part, in an evil hour 
for his fame, became the organ at Washington. His idiosyncrasy 
was not national. His strict-construction doctrines and constitu- 
tional abstractions were regarded as provincialisms, and frequently 
placed him in antagonism with his antecedents. He was Samson 
shorn of his locks. The '■'■Uniori'^ was emphatically a failure, fifty 
fathoms below the vigor of its predecessor. 

Mr. Ritchie was said to have been embarrassed when he went to 
Washington. The public printing was probably profitable. No 
man knew how to employ a fortune more gracefully. He was 
my beau ideal of a gentleman, after the model of the old French 
school. At table his good-humor was irresistible. By the fire- 
side he was charming. He had all the social and domestic vir- 
tues that render life agreeable and make up a perfect private 
character. He was honest and sincere in his political predilec- 
tions, but as an editor sometimes heartless and Jesuitical. For a 
temporary expedient, for a party triumph, or to retrieve an error, 
he would change his course or strike down a friend without re- 
morse. Strange that a man so generous in his personal relations 



1 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 203 

Let no man, particularly no married man, 
seek a clerkship in Washington. It is a 
hard and thankless service, an obscure and 
toilsome berth ; poor you are sure to die, 
and the moment you are installed into office 
you may write over your walls the despair- 
ing words of Dante, ''He who enters here 
leaves all hope behind." In very wretched- 
ness, the poor clerk, disappointed in his 
hope of promotion, often becomes reckless. 
Unappreciated talent is a bitter reflection. 
He loses heart, and works like a machine; 
his early dreams are not realized, and the 
waters of bitterness overflow his soul. He 
is too proud to be toady of some swollen 
superior, to hang on the skirts of an intrigu- 
ing politician ; or, more revolting still, to 
play the spy and informer to the party in 
power. He will not stoop to tricks that 
dam up forever the fountains of honor, and 
bring promotion and infamy hand in hand. 
If he scorn to do this, as most clerks do 



should be thus obdurate and unjust for a political necessity. It is 
a sort of stoicism that can not be defended, and not akin to the 
immortal examples of Roman patriotism which Mr. Ritchie fan- 
cied he was imitating. J. F. H. Claiborne. 



204 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

scorn it, and feels the dignity of an honest 
man, as Pope and Burns felt it in the noblest 
creations of their intellect, he is doomed to 
a long life of profitless service, or to an early 
and unhonored tomb! No flowers bloom 
upon his path, and, should the woman he 
has loved plant one upon his grave, the very 
"pittance she thus piously employs must de- 
prive her little orphans of a meal ! 

And this is a clerkship at Washington, so 
much sought for, so much envied by those 
who do not know its melancholy details. 
Better, much better go into the wilderness, 
bivouac on some distant lake, nestle in some 
mountain glen or on the flower -scented 
prairie, and hew out a living from wood and 
earth, than seek a bawble that glitters only 
to disappoint. 

Better salaries — not rotation, but promo- 
tion — and immunity against political pro- 
scription for clerks that abstain from party 
intrigues and faithfully perform their official 
duties, are reforms sadly needed. 

When a poor unfriended oflicial dies at 
Washington, the only resource of his widow 
is — a boardino:-house. And what is the 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 205 

history of those establishments in the me- 
tropolis ? A hard struggle for credit to be- 
gin with, a little run of patronage, a falling 
off, bills, duns, constables, distraints, sacri- 
fices, ruin, broken health, and slander — for 
that viper seldom fails to strike its fangs 
into the fame of an unfortunate widow at 
the head of a boarding-house. If she be 
beautiful, it is a fatal dowry. If she have a 
daughter, pure as the shrined Madonna, still 
the foul breath of envy is on her fame, and 
it withers before the innocent maiden dreams 
that even a light word has been whispered. 
Sometimes, indeed, through distress and 
deception, they fall. While I was in Wash- 
ington, circumstances brought a sad exam- 
ple to my notice. She lives yet, and, if her 
eye falls on these lines, she will recognize the 
hand that was once raised to avenge her dis- 
honor, but was stayed by her overwhelming 
tenderness for the destroyer of her fame. 
Her walk now is dreary and desolate. Kin- 
dred and friends are gone ; fled forever the 
bright brow of innocence and youth ; and 
yet in her destitution, lost and guilty as she 
was, she is less criminal than some that 



206 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

judge her. "Go, and sin no more." I can 
not think of her without wishing that her 
pilgrimage may close, invoking on the false 
one the curse of Heaven ; and yet her last 
prayer will be for her betrayer! Such is 
woman ! Such the sublime and enduring 
character of her aiFections — the generous and 
unselfish nature of her heart ! 

I observed at Washington what surprised 
me much, that married men were in more 
demand as gallants than single gentlemen. 
Petticoat influence seemed to me to be pre- 
dominant, and grave senators were managed 
and controlled by a pleasant flirtation. This 
is, perhaps, as it should be. The kingdoms 
of the Old World have never been so well 
governed as when under the administration 
of women ; and if we could every where turn 
out our lazy office-holders, and substitute 
their pretty wives and daughters, probably 
business would go on better. 

One thing did not please me at Washing- 
ton. Some of the ladies seemed to prefer 
the arm of any member of Congress, no mat- 
ter how ugly or repulsive, to the attentions 
of the handsome clerks and citizens of the 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 207 

city. How great an error ! The latter 
would offer them the homage of love and re- 
spect. The former too often gazes with the 
eye of unlawful passion, and weaves his de- 
ceitful web until all is lost. But, to gratify 
an idle vanity, the young and innocent are 
thrown into the path of the spoiler from 
abroad, who commands wealth, or rank, or 
influence, while the citizens of the metropo- 
lis are scorned — until Congress adjourns! 
and then they are allowed to hover, like sum- 
mer butterflies, in the perfume of beauty, un- 
til Congress again assembles, when they are 
discarded for the gay deceiver, the practiced 
libertine, the gouty, feeble, superannuated 
gallants so numerous during the winter cam- 
paigns. 

There are many sharp things in Washing- 
ton, but the very sharpest is the tooth of 
slander. During my residence there a rep- 
utation was butchered every twenty -four 
hours. There seemed to be an organized set 
about Brown's and Gadsby's — a sort of fra- 
ternity, half loafer, half gentleman, wearing 
heavy beards, gold chains, and ratans — who 
did nothing but hunt up victims from day to 



208 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

day. Scarce a woman, particularly if pretty, 
was allowed to pass without an ill-natured 
remark. If gallanted by a member of Con- 
gress, and especially a Southerner, there was 
no mercy for her. On dits passed from ho- 
tel to hotel, from boarding-house to board- 
ing-house, exaggerated as they circled round, 
until the crude suspicion, the unfeeling jest, 
became a received reality. Those men were 
confirmed roues themselves ; worn - out de- 
bauchees, subsisting on stimulants ; dis- 
charged office-holders, bitter against all the 
world ; or greedy office-seekers, chagrined by 
delay ; and they avenged themselves by this 
war on female reputation. 

At a wine-party given to me at Brown's, 
a rather distinguished gentleman addressed 
himself pointedly to me, S23oke lightly of the 
virtue of the sex, and very plainly hinted at 
his successes. I had never heard such lan- 
guage where I came from, even among the 
Indians. It offended me. "Sir," said I, 
"no man with a true heart sneers at woman. 
No gentleman ever boasts of his gallantries. 
He who does, violates confidence, and can 
not, therefore, claim to be believed. There 



, ,;;K!rr;'" 



^"-i"i;!!li 




THE liBAGOABT EEBUKJ3D. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 2II 

are no women in the world superior, if equal, 
to the women of our country. A young girl 
may be led off the path of innocence by 
fraud ; a woman may sell herself for bread ; 
but in either case she is to be pitied, not rid- 
iculed. He who exposes her is doubly guilty, 
and should be damned ! Love, beauty, pas- 
sion may be plead for error, but nothing can 
excuse the villain who boasts of his suc- 
cess _and points out his victim." With these 
words I dashed my wine in his face and left 
the table. He was a reputed fire-eater, and, 
of course, "pistols and coffee for two" were 
expected, but I heard nothing more of it. 
Our senator. Colonel William H. King, who 
was at the table, said that the whole com- 
pany justified my proceeding. The gentle- 
man himself tried to laugh it off by saying 
that I was "tight;" but he never appeared 
again in my presence. 

The ladies of Washington struck me, who 
had so long been accustomed to the sun- 
burned maidens of the woods, as very fair 
and beautiful, very fascinating and refined. 
In one thing they differ from our Indian 
women : they look one full in the face, and 



212 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

it is difficult to withstand their glances. An 
Indian maid, when a warrior approaches, 
bends her head like a drooping leaf. It is 
only in the deepest recesses, when no others 
are near, that her lover sees the whole lustre 
of her eyes, or even the blushes that mantle 
on her cheek. They love intensely, and 
make the most faithful of wives and the ten- 
derest of mothers. 

I failed in getting my claim satisfactorily 
settled, notwithstanding its justice and the 
influence of my friends. The third auditor, 
to whom it was referred, Mr. Hagner, was 
impracticable — such a man I never saw be- 
fore ; the moment the word ' ' claim" was 
mentioned he stiffened his back, drew up his 
legs, pulled down his spectacles, pricked up 
his ears, and stuck out his mouth as though 
he would bite. I would rather encounter 
half a dozen Indians than such a harrier of 
a man. His integrity was unimpeachable, 
but he worried me much, and I left the mat- 
ter unsettled. 

I returned home through Virginia and 
Georgia, the scene of my early adventures. 
Most of it I had traversed when it was a 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 218 

pathless wild beset with enemies ; now I 
found villages, towns, cultivated fields, and 
all the concomitants of wealth and civiliza- 
tion. Some old friends I met with ; many 
were in the grave. I went, for the last time, 
to the place where I had laid my poor father 
and mother so many years ago. Briers had 
grown over them, and wild flowers too. I 
wept once more over their honest dust, and 
for others very dear to me, now in the grave, 
and, saddened and thoughtful, returned to 
my home. 



214 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XII. 

Legislature of Mississippi. — State Officers. — Death of General 
Dickson. — Legislature of 1836. — Singular Mortality. — The 
great Question of the Session. — S. S. Prentiss. — Adam L. Bin- 
gaman. — Colonel George L. Fall. — The Mississippian. — John 
T. M'Murran. — The Democratic Leaders. — Banks. — Specula- 
tion. — Public Morals. — The Future of Mississippi. — Her His- 
tory. — The Close of Life. — His Consolation. — Faith in God. — 
His Death. — Personal Appearance and Character. 

In 1833 the Legislature of Mississippi 
passed an act parceling the country recently 
acquired from the Choctaws into counties, 
and providing for the organization of the 
same. At the first election I was chosen to 
represent the County of Lauderdale. The 
state officers were Hiram G. Runnels, Gov- 
ernor ; Daniel Dickson, Secretary of State ; 
John H. Mallory, Auditor ; James Phillips, 
Treasurer; Matthew D. Patten, Attorney 
General.* 

* All dead. Governor Runnels moved to Texas, was appointed 
collector of customs for the port of Galveston, and was a state 
senator when he died last year. General Dickson, subsequently 
elected to Congress by general ticket, died in Arkansas on his 
way to the Hot Springs. In the House of Representatives, as 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 



215 



The Legislature was composed, for the 
most part, of men of mark. Adam L. Bin- 
soon as the reading of the journal was concluded, Mr. J, F. H. 
Claiborne, of Mississippi, announced the death of his colleague 
as follows : 

^'Mr. Speaker, — It is only a few years since, when a student in 
this city, I witnessed from that gallery the affecting honors paid to 
the remains of Christopher Rankin, the distinguished representa- 
tive of my native state. 

*' Since that period she has lost here two statesmen, Thomas B. 
Eeed and Eohert H. Adams, eminent for their talents and virtue, 
and we are now called on to render the last homage to the memory 
of another. 

* ' The time that has intervened since the death of my lamented 
colleague saves me the painful duty of being the first to communi- 
cate it to his friends now present. He died, sir, as he had lived 
through a life of extraordinary vicissitudes, with characteristic for- 
titude, with but one desire ungratified — a desire so natural to the 
heart — that in the last and dark hour he might be supported by 
his nearest and best-beloved, and the cherished ones that clustered 
around his fireside. 

* ' Ah ! sir, let death come when it will, in what shape it may — 
in the battle, or the wreck, or in the solitude of the cloister — it is 
appalling to human contemplation. But when it overtakes us in 
a distant land, and we know that our last moments of agony and 
infirmity are to be witnessed by strangers, and are conscious that 
we shall be carried to an unwept grave, where no kindred dust 
will mingle with ours forever, and the last hope of home and of 
family fades from the filmed view — oh, sir, this is death ! this it 
is to die ! 

"Such was the destiny of my venerated colleague, 

" 'By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned,' 
His dying message was for the broken-hearted, now in widowhood 
and orphanage — his expiring sigh a prayer for them. 

"I can pronounce no studied eulogy on the dead. For twenty 



215 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

gaman, S. S. Prentiss, William VannersoD, 
Benj. F. Stockton, Thomas H. Williams, T. 
M. Tucker, D. M. Fulton, John Bell, Frank- 
lin Lore, N. G. Howard, Gordon E. Boyd, 
W. G. Demoss, and Wm, Yick, were among 
the most |)rominent members. 

Owing to a conflict between the two houses 
on the question of adjournment, and the sus- 
pension of business, the governor adjourned 
them, by proclamation, after a session of 
only twelve days. 

In 1836 the following gentlemen com- 
posed the House of Representatives : A. L. 
Bingaman, John T. M'Murran, F. C. Talbert, 
John Wall, William Dodd, John L. Irwin, 
Thos. Lindsay, D. H. Hoopes, Amos Whit- 
ing, Samuel K. Lewis, Buckner Harris, A. 
G. Brown, Samuel T. Scott, E. S. Ragan, J. 
E. Porter, Joshua Murray, J. C. Monet, J. _ 

years he maintained a high position in the public service, and died ■ 

poorer than when he entered it, leaving his children the riches of ^ 

an honorable name. If it be praise to have lived beloved and to 
die wdthout reproach, then it is due to him. 

"It now only remains for us to pay the last honor to his mem- 
ory—sad, because it seems like breaking the only link that binds 
the living to the dead ; solemn, when we reflect how soon— how 
very soon— some friend now present may invoke the same tribute 
for ourselves." 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 217 

R. Nicholson, W. Dunlop, Thomas H. Wil- 
liams, A. R. Johnson, Thos. W. Dulany, A. 
M. Paxton, A. W. Ramsay, John C. Thomas, 
P. K. Montgomery, Geo. Leighton, Samuel 
Ellis, J. "W. Nicholson, Samuel D ale, W. 
Wethersby, J. W. Pendleton, C. C. Arnett, 
A. W. Jones, W. G. Wright, A. B. Bearing, 
D. M. Fulton, H. Phillips, Fleet Magee, 
Samuel J. Gholson, J. M 'Kinney, Jas. Ellis, 
G. B. Augustus, H. W. Norton, A. E. Dur- 
ham, Franklin Lore, A. P. Cunningham, T. 
J. Coffee, J. W. King, V. E. Howard, E. A. 
Durr, A. M'Caskill, Morgan McAfee, S. S. 
Prentiss, T. J. Green, Alfred Coxe, J. H. 
Home, George H. Gordon, J. A. Ventress, 
P. W. Farrar, Isaac Jones, E. C. Wilkinson, 
P. Duval,, Allen Walker. 

Charles Lynch was Governor; B. W. 
Benson, Secretary of State ; John H. Mal- 
lory. Auditor ; Charles C. Mayson, Treasur- 
er ; Matthew D. Patton, Attorney General.''" 

* All these executive officers and thirty-six or more of the above 
representatives, all then either veiy young or in the prime of 
-life, are now dead. To these may be added many of the senators, 
and their presiding officer, General John A. Quitman. 

The Legislature of 1836, in point of talent, was the most supe- 
rior body that ever convened in this state since the Convention of 
1817, that met in the town of Washington. 

K 



213 ^IFE AND TIMES OF 

The great question of the session was the 
admission of the representatives from the 
recently organized counties. They were 
opposed on constitutional grounds, mingled, 
however, with strong political feeling, for 
party lines were strictly drawn, and there 
was a U. S. senator to elect, whose com- 
plexion depended very much on the admis- 
sion or rejection of the new members. The 
opposition was led by Mr. Prentiss, whom 
I then saw for the first time. He was the 
Tecumseh of the Legislature, and very much 
like that great orator in the control of his 
voice, the play of his countenance, and a 
peculiar way he had of hurling out his 
words — a sort of hissing thunder. In 
speaking he was always energetic, often vio- 
lent, and at such times the frown of Bed- 
gauntlet was stamped upon his brow, and 
his expression not only sardonic, but satanic. 
He could be pathetic and persuasive, and 
then his voice became plaintive as a flute, 
his eye grew humid, his face sad, and he 
seemed to cast himself, like a child, into 
one's arms. When he was in a good humor 
his manner became playful, his eyes spark- 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 219 

led, his cheek dimpled, and there was no re- 
sisting him. The prevailing tone of his 
voice was a spirit-stirring, clarion note, only 
harsh and guttural when dealing in denun- 
ciation. He had read much, particularly 
the Bible, Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, and 
Scott. He had many traits of character in 
common with Byron, and many points of 
physical resemblance. There was much that 
was sensual in his face, but in moments of 
excitement it was thoroughly illuminated 
and purely intellectual. He had the fancy 
and imagination of a poet, an extraordinary 
memory, a faculty for sarcasm and invective 
never surpassed, wit and humor in inex- 
haustible stores, and a rare power for anal- 
ysis and investigation ; add to this his in- 
domitable courage and firmness of purpose, 
and we have a combination of mental and 
moral attributes such as the world rarely 
sees. He selected the law for his profession, 
but in any other, demanding great ability 
and resolution, he would have become emi- 
nent. He had the genius that would have 
made him a great poet, a great scholar, a 
great general, or a great mathematician. 



220 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

At the bar he never had a superior. He 
had not much turn for public life, not much 
ambition for office, and made no great figure 
in mere party discussion ; in fact, his polit- 
ical information was not extensive, and in 
the controversies of the hustings George 
Poindexter, Bobert J. Walker, Henry S. 
Foote, John D. Freeman, and others, were 
his superiors. He seldom read newspapers, 
and had no exaggerated respect for the wis- 
dom of the sovereign people. In the days 
of Hamilton he would have been his de- 
voted fi?iend. He respected Madison, but 
abhorred Jefferson."^ He was compelled, 
against his will, to admire the heroic charac- 
ter of Jackson, but he strongly expressed 
his contempt for John Tyler, f He admired 

* "Our gi-andfatlier, Major L , was a strong Federalist, of 

the school of Washington, and, like others of that school, hated Mr. 
Jefferson with perfect hatred. To his boyish intercourse with his 
grandfather is to be attributed much of the political spirit which 
marked Seargent's mature years. Seargent was a particular fa- 
vorite with him, and, unconsciously perhaps, was thus early imbib- 
ing principles and a habit of feeling in reference to public affaii's 
Avhich underwent no essential change until the day of his death." — 
Life of Prentiss, vol. i., p. 19. 

t " The President (John Tyler) is a traitor and a fool. May he 
meet a traitor's fate, unless the luck of the fool can save him."— - 
Ibid., vol. ii., p. 219. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 221 

and loved Mr. Clay, his great soul, his big 
brain, and his lofty patriotism. But Mr. 
Webster, with his antique head, his Homeric 
imagination, and grand ideas of nationality, 
was the real interpreter of his political 
opinions. On all constitutional questions 
Mr. Prentiss concurred with that great 
jurist. In their tastes, as well as in their 
humor and convivial propensities, there was 
some resemblance between them. The ex- 
clusion of those illustrious men for General 
Taylor, literally a mere military chieftain, 
without the commanding faculties of Jack- 
son, or the scholarship and experience of 
Harrison — a veteran warrior, but wholly 
ignorant of public affairs and the structure 
of our government — deeply disgusted Mr. 
Prentiss."^ 

* "I admire the character of General Taylor as much as any 
man, but I have great contempt for the giddiness of the people, 
who wish to make him President for no other reason than that of 
his being a successful warrior. I presume he is the best specimen 
of a general to be found ; but to put aside all the statesmen of the 
countiy for the purpose of placing him in an office in which his 
military capacity can be of no sen-ice is worse than ridiculous. 
However, I feel but little interest in politics nowadays, and care 
but little what the silly sovereigns do."— Life of Prentiss, vol. ii., 
p. 429. 



222 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

On the exciting question which divided 
the Legislature of 1836, Mr. Prentiss made 
a grand display of his capacity as a debater. 
He was .vigorously opposed, however, by 
the Democratic leaders, and by the Missis- 
sippian, which was conducted then, as now, 
with consummate ability.* He was serious- 

In taking this view of Mr. Prentiss I reflect General Dale's opin- 
ions and my own. It is kno^^Ti to many who may read these pages 
that for several years the personal relations between Mr. Prentiss 
and the writer were not friendly, growing, not out of the Mississippi 
contested election, but from another matter, the result, in a great 
degree, of misrepresentation and malice. The feeling, on my part, 
soon died away, and Mr. Prentiss did not cherish it long. On the 
15th of June, just before he left New Orleans for the last time, he 
sent me, through a mutual friend (Honorable John J. M'Rae), a 
touching message, recurring to the past, exonerating me from 
much blame, and making our future intercourse agreeable. In a 
few days afterward (see Life of Prentiss, vol. ii., p. 572) I an- 
nounced his death in the New Orleans Courier. 

I have written an elaborate memoir of Mr. Prentiss for a histor- 
ical work on which I am engaged, J. F. H. C. 

* Colonel George R. FaU and the late General C. M. Price 
were then editors and proprietors of the Mississippian. Colonel 
FaU established it in critical times, and from the first number to 
the present day it has been conducted with consummate talent and 
inflexible fidelity to the principles of the Democratic State-rights 
party. Under the control of Major Barksdale it has become one 
of the most influential papers in the United States. 

The veteran Colonel Fall, still vigorous and full of his ancient 
fire, resides on Deer Creek, Washington County, on his fine estate. 
No man in this state has rendered so many public services, and 
asked so little in return. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 223 

ly embarrassed, likewise, by the position of 
Colonel Adam L. Bingaman, from whom lie 
expected counsel and support. This dis- 
tinguished gentleman is a native of the 
state, of an old, extensive, and patriotic 
family. He graduated with distinction at 
Harvard University, and on his return 
home succeeded to large estates. In 1814 
he volunteered for the defense of New Or- 
leans in the Natchez rifle company, and was 
elected first lieutenant. In politics he has 
always been a Whig, and a strenuous sup- 
porter of Henry Clay. He is a man of very 
superior and highly cultivated intellect, one 
of the best classical scholars in the state, of 
fine person and imposing manners, ambitious 
of distinction, yet ever scrupulous in his ef- 
forts to win it. He has always occupied a 
high position in the public eye, but with 
less conscientiousness he would have long 
since obtained the very highest. Personally 
he has always been a favorite with the 
dominant party, and there have been occa- 
sions when a very narrow line of demarka- 
tion separated them, and he had only to 
cross it to be placed in power. The present 



224 l^^FE AND TIMES OF 

was one of them. His convictions induced 
him to advocate the admission of the new 
members, and thus to co-operate with the 
Democratic party in a matter essential to 
their political ascendency ; but he went no 
farther, although every temptation and ev- 
ery argument VN^as presented to his ambition 
and his judgment. These are honorable in- 
cidents in a public career, and deserve to be 
recorded. 

Associated with Colonel Bingaman, but 
not agreeing with him on this question, was 
Mr. John T. M 'Murran, the best lawyer and 
closest reasoner in the House. He employed 
no superfluous words, no introductions or 
valedictions, but plunged right into the gist 
of the subject, and stojDped exactly at the 
right place. He was the clearest and most 
logical sjDeaker I ever heard, and a man of 
singular mildness of manner, universally 
beloved. He subsequently rose to the head 
of his profession, and retired upon an ample 
fortune. Preston W. Farrar, E. C. Wilkin- 
son, and James A. Ventress, were leading 
men in the opposition at that time, of 
marked character and extensive influence. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 225 

On our side, Albert G. Brown, Sam. J. 
Gholson, Buckner Harris, Thomas H. Wil- 
liams, George H. Gordon, Volney E. How- 
ard, Morgan M'Afee, and H. W. Dunlop, 
were the principal speakers — men of great 
ability and shrewdness, firm of purpose, ar- 
dent and sincere in their convictions, and, 
as parliamentary tacticians, far ahead of 
their opponents. They secured the rights 
of the new counties and the admission of 
their representatives by a vote of thirty-one 
to twenty-nine, and the Hon. Hobert J. 
Walker was soon after elected to the Senate. 
This was the era of banks and discounts, 
wild speculation, extravagance, and license. 
Gaming and drinking were carried to excess 
at Jackson. Men not worth a button would 
coolly ask for an indorsement for ten thou- 
sand dollars, and indorsements in blank to 
be filled up to suit any trade that might of- 
fer. A refusal to indorse was resented as a 
reflection on one's integrity ; and to suggest 
a mortgage as security for an indorsement 
was a matter of great delicacy, and general- 
ly offensive. I have seen a man not worth 

one cent at a gaming-table publicly staking 

K2 



226 LIf'E AND TIMES OF 

blank paper with the well-known signatures 
and indorsements of responsible men ! * Al- 

* The following extracts from letters addressed to the late Gen- 
eral John A. Quitman illustrate the state of things prevailing at 
that period: 

"Jackson, January 13, 1837. 

" The note we indorsed for G and D for $5000 we shall 

have to pay. G is dead, utterly insolvent, and never was 

worth a dollar. D is habitually drunk, and neither knows nor 

cares, or pretends to know or care any thing about business. He 
has no property, and was only a genteel loafer, with some little 
political influence and a pretense of business, when we put our 

names on his paper. F has gone to Texas ' ' for his country's 

good," and M would follow him if he had any thing to moA^e 

away with. The other two indorsers stand upon their dignity. 

A has nothing, and C openly repudiates, and swears he 

will kill the first man that sues him. He struts through the streets 
with a bowie-knife in his bosom and two pistols belted round him. 
* * * * The Legislature is in confusion, doing nothing ; and 
Prentiss swears they shall do nothing until the new members are 
purged out of it." 

"Yazoo City, June 13, 1837. 

" is out for judge. He will be elected. The bank 

milks freely. We have deposited $100 at every precinct in this 
county to treat the sovereigns, and will trip the out and out Tom 
Benton gold-and-silver men." 

"Vicksburg, March 21, 1S38. 

" Do you know a Mr. D. G y ? Some time in February he 

brought me a letter of introduction, and seems to have spent some 
time with you all at Natchez. I indorsed his bill for $1000, and 
had it discounted here in bank. It has come back here protested 
for non-acceptance. Do you know where he is, or any thing about 
him ?" 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 227 

most every citizen, members included, wore 
pistols and bowie-knife, and a row once a 

" Vicksburg, December 24. 

"I am just informed by Mr. G. M. P , who was informed 

by Mr. S. S. P , that you hold a note of mine for some nine to 

ten thousand dollars, on which Mr. is joint di-awer. I am 

not aware that I ever executed such paper at any time for any 
purpose whatever. I do not owe any such debt," etc. (The writer 
of the above was one of the best and most correct business men 
of his day, but had entirely, in the magnitude of his every~day op- 
erations, overlooked this small affair. ) 

"Hinds County, June 3, 1839. 

"I should like to get a contract on that section of the Missis- 
sippi Railroad between Jackson and Canton. I owe about 
$250,000. I am planting, in different places, some 1500 acres in 
cotton. I own three large plantations well stocked with negroes. 
Part of my debts are now due, the rest judiciously arranged to 
mature in the next three years. The paper now due I could dis- 
charge with my cotton crop, but about the time it comes in anoth- 
er set of debts matures ; so I must either draw on next year's crop, 
or go to work on the railroad. Drawing is an up-hill business. 
I prefer the road, if I can arrange with your bank to draw in an- 
ticipation of my work. You can pay my debts as they fall due, 
supply me with provisions and clothing, and a few thousand dol- 
lars for pocket-change and a trip to the Springs, and I will forth- 
with put two hundred able-bodied negroes on the road." 

Three years previous to the date of this letter the wi-iter was not 
worth one dime. Bank discounts had enabled him to purchase 
this large amount of property, for which he paid enough to get 
possession, and then paid no more. This is only one out of hund- 
reds of instances of that era. 

From a Bank Patriot. 

" Madison County, December 8, 1836. 
" My astonishment has been so great to see the will of the pea- 



228 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

day was the rule, not the exception. I have 
seen members of the Legislature with guns 
in the lobby for attack or defense, and near- 
ly the whole population of the city once 
drawn up, at either extremity of the public 
square, in battle array. 

With the dissolution of the banks and the 
substitution of cotton as the basis of a cur- 
rency and exchange, the influx of the pre- 
cious metals, substantial and real capital for 
imaginary wealth, came the amelioration of 
morals and a more refined standard of man- 
ners, besides a general adoption of that no- 
blest of all principles of action, the only sure 
foundation for individual and national inde- 
p enden ce — self-reliance. 

The State of Mississippi has a grand fu- 
ture. Her territory is extensive, yet com- 
pact, in latitudes most favorable for cotton, 

pie silenced by the voice of the tyrant, General Jackson, I could 
not summon fortitude to ^mte. His whole party go in for the spoils. 

"By the way, I am anxious.to hear about that directorship I 
hinted to you when you were at my house. I am anxious to know 
how I became so unpopular with the institution after having given 
it birth. I do not boast, but refer to every member of the Legis- 
lature for my services. I am above complaining, but, sir, what is 
man without gratitude ? 

"P.S. — I would like very much to be a director in the Plant- 
ers' Bank at Jackson." 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. 229 

sugar, and the cereal crops. Her soil is 
productive, and beneath its surface lie the 
elements of fertility and renovation. Fine 
rivers penetrate her interior. Water-power 
for manufactories, timber for ship-building, 
and naval supplies are abundant. Her sea- 
board is commodious, accessible, sheltered 
from storms, and the healthiest in the world. 
Long lines of railroad furnish the means of 
intercommunication. 

Her very history is heroic. The flag of 
the silver lilies and the banner of old Spain, 
once the naost famous, long floated here, the 
symbols of sovereignty, chivalry, and the 
faith of Christ. 

The blood-red cross of St. George, which 
for a thousand years has never been dis- 
graced, once stood here, the representative 
of dominion and civilization. 

Born upon our soil, and, as they believe, 
sprung from it, was a noble race of Ked Men, 
two households of one family, who never en- 
countered a foe that they did not defeat, and 
for whom Providence has in reserve, I trust, 
the happiest dispensations, social and polit- 
ical. 



230 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Colonized at an early period by bold and 
adventurous Americans fully instructed in 
the principles of liberty; soon the rendez- 
vous of talent, intelligence, and enterprise ; 
conspicuous at Fort Mims, Eccanachaca, 
New Orleans, Monterey, and Buena Vista ; 
contributing more than her quota to every 
branch of the public service — she stands a 
sovereign among sovereigns, the peer of the 
most powerful. 

She was the first state in this Union, or 
in the world, to recognize, practically, in her 
fundamental law, the supreme power of the 
people, to abolish property qualifications, 
and provide absolute prohibitions against 
the abuse of public credit. 

May she be true to herself; never ask 
what is wrong ; never submit to any infrac- 
tion of her rights; never squander her great 
resources ; never grant any part of them to 
foreign stock-jobbers and speculators ; and 
never forget the celebrated maxim of Livy, 
"That state is alone free which depends on 
its own strength, not upon the arbitrary will 
of another. *"* 

* Civitas ea autem in libertate est posita quae suis stat viribus, 
non ex alieno arbitrium pendet. 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE 231 

I am now a lonely man, patiently waiting 
the roll-call of the Great Chief above. Much 
of my life, as you have heard, has been passed 
in solitude, on paths beset with danger, or 
in deadly strife. I have been, from neces- 
sity, self-reliant and fearless ; but, since the 
night of my father's death, when so many 
orphans were left in my charge, my trust 
has been in God, and the greater the peril 
the firmer my faith. It has comforted me 
in sorrow. It has sustained me, when cold 
and wearied, on my midnight scout. It has 
nerved my arm when striking for my coun- 
try ; and now, sir, it lights up the gloom of 
the grave, and shines brighter and brighter 
in the depths of eternity. Put your trust 
in Him. 

:>. ^ iU ^ ^ ^ ^ 

With words like these the old soldier fin- 
ished his story. I wrung his honest hand in 
silence, and never saw him again. He died 
on the 24th of May, 1841, in the seventieth 
year of his age, calm and self-possessed, and 
lies buried near Daleville, in the County of 
Lauderdale, Mississippi. 

General Dale was six feet two inches, erect. 



♦ 



232 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

square-shouldered, raw-boned, and muscu- 
lar, noted particularly for great length and 
strength of arm. In many respects, physical 
and moral, he resembled his antagonists of 
the woods. He had the square forehead, 
the high cheek-bones, the compressed lips — 
in fact, the physiognomy of the Indian, re- 
lieved, however, by a fine, benevolent Saxon 
eye. Like the Ked Man, too, his foot fell 
lightly on the ground, and turned neither to 
the right or left ; he was habitually taciturn ; 
his face and manner grave ; he spoke slowly, 
and in low tones, and seldom laughed. I 
observed of him what has been often noticed 
as peculiar to border men of high attributes 
— he entertained a strong attachment for the 
Indians, extolled their courage, their love 
of country, their patience, their tenderness 
to their children, and their reverence for the 
dead. I have often seen a wretched rem- 
nant of the Choctaws, homeless and ojDpress- 
ed, camped around his plantation, and sub- 
sisting on his bounty. In peace, even the 
Creeks entertained for him the highest ven- 
eration ; he had been the friend of Weather- 
ford ; he fed many when gaunt famine, more 



GENERAL SAMUEL DALE. oqo 

terrible even than the "dogs of war," pur- 
sued them ; but in battle, the name of '•'•Big 
Sam'" fell on the ear of the Seminole like 
that of Marius on the hordes of the Cimbri. 



THE END. 



/ 



